Searching for a Seattle Sky
by Chicleeblair
Summary: During the turmoil of trying for a baby, adopting Zola and nearly tearing apart her marriage, Meredith forgot her fears about becoming a mother. Now she remembers, and Lexie's the only one who can help rid her of them for good. Mer/Der, Mark/Lexie Post S7
1. Prologue

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

**Amsterdam, 2001**

So, her dad constantly telling her to get her head out of the clouds _wasn't_ just a verbal tic, Alexandra Grey thought in the second before she leapt back to avoid the bicycles whizzing toward her. She'd regained her footing for seconds before the bell of the fast-approaching tram deafened her.

_Move, Lexie, move!_ (In her head, she still sometimes forgot she was "Alexandra," but she still got pissed at her mom when she forgot.)

Her feet were weighed down by the Doc Martens that Jenny _insisted _she buy for her European adventure and she, the shoes and her trombone case were about to be completely crushed and—

And she was lying on the sidewalk staring up at the piercing blue sky that had distracted her in the first place. She didn't feel the pressure of tires breaking her spine. (Did the trams have wheels? They ran on tracks crisscrossing the city, but did they have wheels?).

Something was on top of her. Did the tram driver manage to brake right _after_ he ran over her body? God, her mind moved quickly, for her to be thinking all this in the split second before she died, and the weight was gone, did this mean she was dead or—?

"Kid, are you okay? Can you move?"

If someone was asking her that, it must have meant she wasn't dead. Right?

She flattened one hand against the gritty road and pressed, managing to push up. Someone, she assumed the speaker, helped by repositioning the weight of her backpack.

"Let's get you out of the street," the voice continued. In addition to the girl's voice (sort of hoarse, but kind), she could hear the murmurs of a crowd, and a few horns. She focused on watching her shoes, putting one shiny black boot in front of the other. _One foot, two foot, one foot, two foot, three foot?_ Was she going nuts? No, the person next to her was wearing the same shoes. Hers were significantly more scuffed than Lexie—than Alexandra's.

"Curb," the girl said, grabbing Alexandra's elbow to help her up.

The traffic noise started up again, and the sound of another tram made her heart rise up into her throat. Her right knee stung, but she refused to give into the tears threatening to well in her eyes.

"Hey," said the person who still has hold of her arm. "You okay?"

Alexandra shook her head, and the small sob she'd fought to keep escaped her lips. She cast her eyes around frantically for the girls who would laugh at this. (She was the band geek who got mocked by band geeks.)

"It's okay. You're okay. Come on, let's sit for a minute, okay? Just sit."

She allowed herself to be led. Every time she blinked she saw the tram heading toward her again. Damn photographic memory. It would haunt her dreams forever.

"So. What's your name?"

She swallowed around the lump threatening to choke her. "Alexandra." The split-second of hesitation before she spat the word out was shrinking. Maybe by the time she left for college it'd be second nature.

"Hi, Alexandra. I'm Death. Death Grey."

Alexandra figured she'd hit her head too hard on the concrete when she fell. It was the only way to explain how she's staring into the eyes of the mythical big sister she'd seen only in photographs, and why the girl looked more like the girls who beat her up on a regular basis than the savior she'd dreamt about for years.


	2. Chapter One

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

In Boston, Meredith had been the only one of her friends who loved the intermittent rains. And, as paradoxically as ever, she hated thunderstorms. Those sent her to the back of the closet, lost in the memory of warm, strong arms around her—one of only a few non-repressed memories of her father. On the other hand, the pitter-patter of little raindrops on the window could combat her usual insomnia.

She wondered if Zola would be the same way, but she wouldn't find out this first night. The April sky above Seattle was clearer than she'd ever seen it. Funny, how she now realized it was the Seattle skyline she'd searched for all over the world. Also funny how on this night, the one that would define the rest of her life, it was not behaving as a Seattle sky should.

"You probably won't like the rain, huh Zola?"

Zola watched her lips move through half-open eyes, and Meredith smiled as she watched her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks. The baby's weight had become comforting in the few hours since she'd taken her out of the hospital crib for the last time. "I don't think it rains much in Malawi. But you're lucky. You're so little now. You won't remember. You won't always be looking for what's missing. At least, I hope you won't. I hope we can give you…well…as much as possible."

She didn't say "it all." Meredith may have learned to believe she could have much more than she ever thought she deserved, but she'd never have it all, as proven by the fact that her husband wouldn't answer his phone.

She wouldn't admit it, but she was _really_ glad she'd agreed to the legal-marriage thing. Whatever had happened, she still had the right to call him her husband.

The door slammed downstairs, and Zola shrieked loudly in her ear. Meredith fought the urge to shoot to her feet. It was almost two in the morning, and she'd given up hoping for Derek.

Really. She had.

Also, she didn't want him to see her with Zola and then be rendered unable to have the conversation they needed to have. They couldn't fake it for the baby. They needed to work through things. But she'd barely thought this before Zola started to whimper, and Meredith realized again how out of her league she was. If it was Derek, he could help her, and they'd talk after Zola slept. Or after she slept.

God. Sleep would be so freaking good. Her eyelids felt heavier than they normally did after a forty-eight hour shift, and she'd only been on for twelve. Each of those had felt like four, though, so maybe it worked out.

"Okay, Zola. Let's go see who's home. Maybe it's April. She will be my boss by the time they let me go back to work, so try not to keep her awake too much, okay?"

Her voice wavered while she climbed over the bags she'd dropped on the floor, but Zola's whimpering eased a little. Maybe she just needed to be reminded she wasn't alone in the dark. Meredith knew that feeling.

"Oh my God, I'm surrounded by babies," the new arrival said when Meredith peeked out of the bedroom door. Lexie shook her head opened the door to the attic. Then she glanced back over her shoulder. "Wait, what am I saying? Is that…? Oh my God! You got Zola!"

At the sound of her name said so loudly, Zola obviously felt she had to compete in the volume contest. "It's temporary," Meredith said over the sudden noise burst. "Temporary custody."

"Until the adoption gets finalized, right? That's amazing! Is Derek…?" Meredith pressed her lips firmly together, and her emotion must have shown on her face, because Lexie's eyes went wide in the way they always did when she knew she'd said too much.

"He's—," Meredith started, but Zola saved her from having to answer. Unfortunately, she saved her by switching her whimpers into a full-fledged cry. "Shh, Zola. What is it?" she crooned, wishing the baby could talk back. It'd be easier when she could say what she wanted. Assuming she didn't have the same issues explaining these needs as her moth—as Meredith did.

"Is she dirty?"

"No, I just changed her. She may be hungry. Her bottles are in my room," Zola interrupted her with a wail and stuck her fingers in Meredith's face as if to remind her that she was the one to whom attention should be paid.

"I'll get them. Meet me downstairs. We'll take care of you, Zola."

Meredith's chest relaxed a little at the way Lexie said 'we.' She didn't want to be alone in the dark any more than Zola did. Lexie ducked into the darkened room, and Meredith reached for the stair railing. She had to admit that though she'd hoped Derek would be the one to come through the door, she didn't object to the person who'd actually showed up.

She went through the dining room to get to the kitchen, to give Cristina the chance to ignore them if she wanted to. She needed to talk to her, to remind her she'd made the right choice, but first she had to calm Zola down. Zola had to come first.

Step number one to not becoming her mother.

Lexie reappeared before she could fall too far down _that_ rabbit hole. "Okay. Have the bottle. Do you have any stipulations about how I heat it? Molly was all into heating the formula, not the plastic, but I know some moms don't care and—."

"Lexie! We need to feed the baby. End of story."

"Right." Lexie slammed the microwave door.

Meredith sank into a kitchen chair, rubbing circles on Zola's back. "Food's coming. We've got this, okay? You and I. And Lexie. Lexie's gonna help us out. I think we're going to need all the help we can get."

"Oh, I don't know," Lexie said after the microwave beeped. "You've always been pretty good with kids." She checked the temperature of the bottle with her hand. Would Meredith have remembered to do that? Of course she would. She'd fed babies before.

But would she?

"Always?" she said, distractedly touching the bottle to Zola's lips to make her suck. The milky formula must have been comforting to her—something familiar somewhere so strange. Meredith had to admit, the scent made her realize all over again that this baby was in her kitchen and would be in her kitchen, hopefully, for a long time.

Lexie braced herself against the counter and got the caught-in-the-headlights look she'd freaking perfected. Meredith didn't know why, and she didn't have time to figure out. She could only let out a sigh of relief as Zola latched onto the bottle, and immediately wrapped her fist around Meredith's index finger.

"Oh, you know, in the hospital—." The door opening again cut her off. Meredith's heart sped up for the split second before she heard Jackson yell, "Why are all the lights on?"

"I feel like I'm back at Joe's, wanting him to pick me," Meredith murmured to Zola, whose wide eyes made her even easier to ramble at than the sympathetic bartender. "But he did pick me. He did. He picked us," she added to the baby, thinking of the hundred-watt smile Derek had worn as his lips formed the words "let's adopt her."

"You okay?" Lexie asked, sitting down next. She'd begun attempting an answer when Jackson came in, armed with a fast-food bag. In any other life, this would have been unusual at two am.

"I will be." For once, she thought it might be true. Zola's steady gaze made it really damn hard to be glass (or bottle) half-empty. "We will be."

Jackson spun a chair around and sat backward in it, biting into his hamburger in the same motion. "There's a baby in here." A drop of ketchup fell onto the table and he lapped it up with a finger. More life in five minutes than the table had seen for the twenty years before she took the house over. "That's a baby, right?"

"That is what they call a person under the age of two," a fourth voice snapped.

Meredith raised her eyes to Cristina who stood in the doorway of the kitchen. _People who linger in doorways are coming from nowhere and going nowhere_, her mother's voice said in her head. God, Ellis Grey could be so wrong sometimes. Cristina had come so far, and had so far to go. "Mer, do you have any olives?"

"Yeah. Derek…" She swallowed, wishing that saying his name didn't make her eyes sting. "We had something with olives the other night." To cover the awkward silence, she shifted Zola to her shoulder and began patting her back steadily. After Cristina sat down, Meredith surveyed the table. So many different people had sat here since the day she first allowed George and Izzie to move in. _Always collecting strays_, her mother had said the millions of times she let friends having a tough time crash in their guest room.

It'd served her pretty well in the end she figured, right before Zola let out a burp that shouldn't have come from someone so tiny. Jackson guffawed, Lexie grinned widely and Meredith even saw a tiny smile emerge on Cristina's lips before she popped an olive between them.

The warm light of the kitchen seemed to negate the cold darkness outside, took them away from the devastation of the day to the safety of the room where Izzie had once baked endless cakes to soothe their feelings after awful shifts, and George had fixed coffee for Meredith on mornings when she could barely lift her head up to thank him.

How weird that these memories felt safer to her than the ones of being protected from thunderstorms by her father.

A few minutes later, Zola's eyes began to close. Meredith hoped this meant she felt safe in the kitchen too.

"Can I put her down?" Lexie cut her eyes pointedly at Cristina. She must have been able to sense something was wrong.

She nodded. Lexie clapped her hand twice in front of Zola. "Let's go sleepy, baby girl," she cooed.

Zola's grip on Meredith's finger took a moment to break, and Meredith's heart warmed even as her arms grew cold and empty.

"This is really bad timing," she said to Cristina once Lexie had gone upstairs, trailed by Jackson. "I'm sorry."

Cristina balled her hands in front of her and spoke to them instead of Meredith. The hunch of her spine reminded Meredith of the defeat she'd seen in her after the shooting. How much changed in a year. How much didn't. "Please. Don't. It's not your fault. It's…" She pressed her hands firmly against her forehead, but Meredith saw the single tear drop falling down her cheek. The rain she'd wished for earlier in the night.

Meredith reached up and gripped Cristina's hand, tightly with her own. Cristina's eyes were full of pain, and a tinge of self-loathing. Meredith only recognized it because she'd seen it in her own eyes.

"I made him tell me he loved me first. He says he loves me. But if he loved me, wouldn't he get me? It's just like Burke."

The name made Meredith flash back to the day, almost exactly three years ago, when she'd held Cristina—held her together—after the failed wedding.

"It's not like Burke," she said now. "It can't be like Burke, because not getting us… it can't mean they don't love us." Not after the look Derek had given her, like he just didn't comprehend her and he never would. That couldn't just be it. "And he does get you…mostly. This…about this…"

Her tongue stuck to her dry lips as she faltered. She didn't know about this. She didn't know what it would have been like if she hadn't wanted kids and Derek had. She'd wanted kids with him—specifically with him—from the start, and he'd felt the same.

Until now.

So, she didn't know.

"Doesn't that make it worse?" Cristina said.

"I don't know. But I know we'll get through this." She forced a smile. "After all, I made it through my first night with a baby. Meredith Grey, with a baby. Who'd have thought?" _Not Derek, apparently._

"Me," two voices said at once. Cristina to her left, and in the doorway Lexie. "Meredith," Lexie added, holding something out on her palm. At first Meredith thought it was a baby monitor, until she remembered she didn't have one of those.

Then she saw it was her Blackberry.

_One missed call: Derek Shepherd (Cell)._

"Do you want me to take Zola upstairs so you guys can fight?" Lexie asked, watching her sister pace the living room with Zola in her arms. It was after three in the morning. Zola had slept for about fifteen minutes, but her hatred of the port-a-crib had shown through again. A few minutes earlier, Meredith had directed Cristina to Alex's empty room. Lexie heard the linen closet open and shut. (Would her first resident now be her roommate? Stranger things had happened in the world of Seattle Grace.)

Meredith shook her head. The pallor of her face reminded Lexie of the time Derek's mom had visited. (Of course, now the baby she clutched could have been her life vest, rather than a bottle of tequila). Ever since Lexie had met Meredith, she'd wanted to show her family didn't have to be a scary thing. At the moment, Shepherd wasn't helping her with this goal.

The slam of a car door made Meredith jump. Zola made a tiny chirping noise, and Lexie wondered if Meredith knew her shoulders relaxed at the sound.

Lexie started to stand up when she heard keys in the doorknob, but Meredith shot her hand out. "Stay there. I don't want… I can't fight with him right now."

She sounded so tired. Lexie remembered the exhaustion that had overcome her after the shooting. This was, in a way, Meredith needing her to sit by her bedside.

Shepherd's voice (she was reluctant to admit) sounded equally as tired. "Meredith?"

The space between the foyer and the door of the living room seemed to have had all the air sucked out of it by a powerful vacuum. The expression on his face when he saw his wife holding Zola belonged to a private world Lexie didn't belong in. She wasn't sure what it meant that she'd been invited to join.

"Do you want to take her, Derek?" Meredith held the baby out. "In case my horrible mother vibes are contaminating her already?"

Shepherd's eyes widened, and then settled into a saddened squint. Lexie wasn't sure this matched the pain she heard underneath Meredith's words. "No… I want to see you holding her. I… God, Mer. This is why you were calling?"

"I heard you say you needed space. I wasn't so needy that I couldn't give you that. I just thought you'd have wanted to be here when I brought her home."

"I do. I would have. I can't believe I missed it." He stepped further into the room, and Meredith took a tiny step backward. Lexie reached out to pull a shopping bag full of baby things out of her way.

"Well. You did. You ran Derek. You told me I'd be a bad mother, and _you_ ran. After we promised we wouldn't. Like you did the night you called me a lemon and hit your mother's wedding rings into the forest. Like—Derek?"

Lexie had been watching the intent expression on Meredith's face, the way she kept her hand firmly planted on Zola's back and jiggled the baby as she talked to keep her from fussing. At the concerned last word, Lexie turned to her brother-in-law (no longer just post-it-in-law). Tears streamed down his face.

"Der?" Meredith's voice had softened so much it could have belonged to someone else, and Lexie saw the definitive difference between herself and her sister. She thought he deserved to cry. She'd seen the heartbroken look on Meredith's face when his name was mentioned at the table. But Meredith went over to him, and put a gentle hand on his cheek. If her ability to put her own pain aside to heal someone else's wasn't the definition of a good mother, Lexie wasn't sure what was.

"What is it?" Meredith asked, so, so gently.

"My mother. She had a heart attack. Kath called me an hour ago." The _right before I called you_, was silent but Lexie saw Meredith's hand tense.

"Oh my God. Is she…will she be…?"

"She's in the hospital right now, in critical condition. I'm going to fly out as soon as I can."

"You mean we are. Derek… I'll go with you…that is…unless you don't want me to?"

Derek exhaled, a sharp sound like the way Lexie remembered him breathing after the bullet was removed from his chest. "I do. Of course I do. But Zola… I don't want her flying yet. It's confusing enough for an infant, but it's too soon after her surgery and she doesn't need another new location."

Meredith stepped away from him again, folding her hand into a fist. Lexie imagined her smacking it right into Derek's face, but she didn't. She never would. "Right. I guess a good mother would have thought of all that."

"Meredith…"

"Here. Take her. I'll go book a flight. You need one right?"

Derek nodded and sank into a nearby armchair. Meredith deposited Zola in his arms, but it took an additional second for the baby to let go of her finger. "Stay with Derek, Zola," Meredith said. "He's got you."

Lexie watched Derek's expression while this exchange went on, but she didn't have the training at reading his expressions the way Meredith did. "Does Mark know?" she asked.

Derek's eyes didn't leave Zola's face. "I left him a message. He'll probably want to go out there. She—."

"I know. She was a mother to him too; a good mother, one who took in people who needed to be taken care of… not unlike Meredith."

Lexie left the room without waiting for a response, and knocked gently on the door of the study. Meredith didn't respond. Lexie pushed it open to find her sister staring intently at the rotating hourglass on her computer screen. "Is William Shatner finding you the best deal for your travel needs?" Meredith barely moved at the noise. Lexie sighed and came all the way into the room. "Your husband is an ass."

"Yeah. But he might be right. What if being a bad mother is genetic? Hell, Zola's up at three-thirty in the morning. That's strike one. Derek will come back from bonding with his happy, functioning family and realize again what a horrible person he married. I sympathize with serial killers. I put my hand in body cavity with a bomb. I ruined his trial. Clearly, there is something pathologically wrong with my brain, and I'll pass it on to Zola."

"Stop it!" Lexie exclaimed, louder than she'd intended.

Meredith paused midway through entering a credit card number. "What?"

Lexie came over and put her hand on Meredith's wrist. "You're listing off all the things I admire about you. You're brave, you care about people and you see other perspectives. The fact that you're so worried about not being your mother means you won't be. Ellis Grey wouldn't have sat by me for fifty hours while I slept. Ellis Grey wouldn't have given my dad her liver. She wouldn't even give him his daughter."

Meredith's mouth relaxed a little, and she exhaled shakily. "I can't imagine that. Every time I see him with her it takes my breath away."

"I don't think your mother ever stopped long enough for her breath to be taken away."

"Not by me, anyway," Meredith said, and then pressed the mouse again. The mechanical noise of the printer spitting out Derek's travel itinerary cut into Lexie's thoughts, and Meredith had slipped out the door before she could come up with a response.


	3. Chapter Two

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

Meredith stood outside in the gray predawn light, hugging her torso against the chill in the air. Derek stood next to her, suitcase propped up on the curb. His eyes stared down the street waiting for the cab that would take him—after a fashion—across the country. She knew this departure didn't _exactly_ mirror what he'd done to Addison, but the similarities were making her stomach clench.

"My sisters are all heading over. Amelia is getting the red eye. Kathleen and Nancy are already there with their families. It'll be crazy." His hoarse voice betrayed his fear.

She flexed her fingers. She wanted to clasp his hand, to climb into the approaching cab with him so she could be there, to be his rock amidst a sea of family members who didn't understand him the way she did.

"Tell your mother she needs to get well soon. Zola should meet her… and she'll have a room at the house." She forced a smile. "On second thought, maybe she shouldn't come out too soon. I think she'd want walls."

Derek handed his suitcase to the tired looking driver who'd stepped out of the cab and opened the trunk, then he turned to her with his head cocked slightly to the left. "You still… want the house?"

The muscles in her throat tightened so much that her next words were a series of chokes. "Derek. We have a lot of things to work out, but that doesn't stop the ball from rolling. The baby we're adopting is asleep inside. The house we're building will have a roof one of these days. Time isn't going to stop because we had a fight."

He ran his hand through his hair, and a wan smile came onto his face. "I gave you a speech like that, once."

_You've never done this before_. She remembered the shock in his voice when he realized how few real relationships his girlfriend had had. Funny how he'd had more experience with marriage than she had, but she seemed to understand the definition of the word better.

"Mister, you going to kiss the lady good-bye so we can go or what?" the driver said.

The kiss Derek placed on her cheek was a ghost of the deeper kisses she'd come to expect. To cherish. Something contracted in her chest as she remembered saying _I couldn't remember our last kiss_. She wouldn't want this facsimile of a kiss to have been the last one, and this made her determined to fix things. Somehow.

"Derek?" she called as he opened the door. "I love you. That hasn't changed."

His mouth opened slightly, like he was surprised. She raised one hand in a small wave and turned back to the house, ears perked for a response that didn't come.

Had he become uncertain about that, too?

Her first thought upon entering the house was that she didn't have the energy to deal with Lexie's perky smile. Zola made a noise from upstairs, not quite crying but obviously seeking attention. Meredith headed for the staircase.

"I'm off today," Lexie announced, following. "So we're going to go shopping."

"Shopping?" The word sounded foreign, superficial, when compared to the depth of emotions that were causing the pounding in her brain. While researching for her meeting with the social worker she'd cringed at a webpage where someone had asked "Is spina bifida contagious?" Now her head felt so full that she could almost believe she'd _caught_ hydrocephalus.

"For Zola. She needs a real crib, clothes, toys, and diapers. All that stuff."

"All that stuff," Meredith repeated. She'd made the list mentally the night before. Each ring coming from her cell phone had become another thing she'd have to do before she could consider herself at all successful in this baby endeavor.

In her room, morning light illuminated the detritus of Zola's first night, cementing this thought. Her clothes and the baby's were cast aside next to the dresser. An empty bottle sat on the nightstand, and Zola's pink blanket lay twisted in the port-a-crib.

But from the crib Zola gave her a toothy smile, and light danced in her eyes as she reached a hand out for Meredith. The sight made Meredith want to give her everything in the world, much more than the basics Lexie had suggested.

"Let me put on clean clothes."

"Sure. Do you want me to take her downstairs?"

Meredith glanced over at Lexie for only a second to shake her head, and then stepped over the pile of things to lift Zola out of her crib. "Nope. Zola can stay with me. She's going to stay with me." The words would have felt ominous to her the night before, but the sunshine kindled the spark of optimism in her chest.

After Lexie closed the door, Meredith lost the small amount of energy she had left. She sank down on the bed. The mattress sagged invitingly, and covers were tantalizingly smooth under the hand she put down to balance herself.

"Lexie can wait a little while, don't you think? It's been some kind of a night." She lay down and settling Zola next to her. The baby curled her hands around the corner of the blanket nearest her and tugged it to her mouth. "Am I supposed to let you chew on that? A good mother would know the answer to that."

Zola drooled onto the fabric and gave a tiny coo, suggesting she was immensely pleased with herself.

"I hope Derek's mama is going to be okay, because I think she'd really like to meet you. Actually, I sort of figured we'd be calling her a lot when you came home. I guess I really am cursed when it comes to mothers."

If something happened to Mrs. Shepherd she'd really believe that.

Zola blinked, and her tiny eyes stayed shut for longer than a normal blink. She widened them again—her gaze fixed on Meredith's face—then yawned. A tiny frown crossed her lips, like she didn't want to be sleepy.

Meredith smiled. "Wish you didn't have to sleep? You'll fit right in here." She rested a hand on the baby's warm back. "We're supposed to be going shopping. And I have no idea when you should nap, but I don't think it's at seven in the morning.

"Also, I have a lot of damage control to do. People are going to want to talk to me. A lot of people. But I don't really want to talk to them. Avoidance. Another lesson I probably shouldn't teach you." She yawned. "Oh well. What do you think? Should we blow off the world for a while?"

Zola smacked her lips around the wet edge of the blanket, and her eyes stayed shut for another long second. Meredith inched the covers up to slide them both underneath them. By the time she laid her head back on the pillow, Zola had fallen asleep. The soft baby snores made her smile. Derek would say they meant Zola was meant to be hers.

Or he would have, once.

She nestled her cheek against the pillow, and focused on inhaling the milky scent of Zola's soft breaths. The warmth became anesthetic, though it felt far more comforting than a sterile plastic mask. Right before she sank into a dream, she thought maybe they wouldn't bother with a crib right away. Not until she wouldn't have to sleep in this bed alone again.

Meaning hopefully sometime before Zola started preschool.

***

Lexie spent ten minutes waiting for Meredith in the kitchen before she figured out her sister probably wouldn't be coming downstairs for a while. She crept upstairs to confirm and peered into the room, leaning on the doorjamb for a second. The light made Meredith's pillowed hair seem golden. She had one arm wrapped protectively around Zola, who in turn had a tiny fist wrapped around the fabric of Meredith's shirt.

If Shepherd had the balls to find something negative in this picture, _anything_ that implied Meredith wouldn't be one of the most caring mothers in ever, then he was totally blind.

"What are you staring at?"

Lexie jumped and shut the door, careful to keep it from making noise. Cristina stood outside of Alex's door dressed in the clothes she'd worn the night before. They were ruffled now, like the skin under her eyes. This combined with the scene in Meredith's room proved this would be one of those nights that never truly ended—the ramifications of things said would last a lifetime. (Meredith's tendency toward profundity must have rubbed off on her or something).

"Checking on Meredith and Zola. They're asleep."

"What about Shepherd? Did he show?"

"Yeah, and then he left again. His mom had a heart attack," she said in response to Cristina's raised eyebrows. "He had to. Do you want… can I make you breakfast? Or coffee at least?"

What little color there had been in Cristina's face disappeared as she shook her head. "No. I should go. I have a shift at the hospital."

"Do you… are you sure you don't want to call in?"

"And do what? Help Meredith with the baby she may not get to keep while I wait to get rid of one I don't want? Go back to my house to find out Owen's changed the locks?" Her bushy curls bounced as she shook her head. "No. I'll go to work. At least there I know what to do, and what to say."

Lexie nodded. She remembered how it'd been after she left Mark. Sometimes successfully suturing a wound was all that got her through the day. Cristina started down the stairs.

"Hey," Lexie called right before she heard the creak of the front door. Cristina leaned her head back to meet her eyes.

"What?"

"Just…if you need anything… I know Meredith's your person, but she's going to be busy and… You've been there for me before, so I just thought I'd say…I'm here. You know. If you do." What surprised her most after she'd given this speech was how little she felt like an intern speaking to her superior. Even after the countless times she'd hung out with Cristina—always having Meredith as a buffer or a source of tension—she'd been aware of who Cristina had first been to her. The Nazi. The one to fear.

Now she was a woman who obviously needed a friend.

Cristina seemed to be having the same realization judging by the way her expression morphed from bemused, to wary, to grateful. "Thanks, Three," she said, and somehow the moniker seemed more humanizing than any time Cristina had actually said her name. "I'll keep it in mind."

The door shut behind her, and the house once again became quiet. Lexie crept up to her bedroom, and seeing the disarray that greeted her, decided it was time to stop avoiding her laundry. As she tossed balled up clothes into her hamper she noticed the photo album had fallen off her nightstand. She retrieved it quickly; deciding she'd better put it back in its hiding spot, like she should have done right after Jackson started frequenting her room.

She'd realized the ramifications of the images it contained a long time ago, and she'd been careful not to show it to anyone. Something in her was waiting for the right time. Before she stuck it back in her pajama drawer—the same place she'd hid her tequila bottles in college—she flipped it open. In the center of the album she'd put together when she was seventeen there was a snapshot of her sitting on the steps of a hostel with a young woman.

She'd had red hair at the time, dyed after her first serious boyfriend broke up with her and she'd fashioned herself Alexandra. The picture had been taken by one of the oboe players in the band, on their trip to a competition in Europe. She'd babysat all through the summer and fall to have money for the trip, because she knew her parents; savings went into her college fund. Even then, she hadn't had the designer suitcases of her classmates.

Three minutes before the snapshot, she'd zoned out while staring at the blue of the Amsterdam sky. Two minutes later, the woman had introduced herself as Death.


	4. Chapter Three

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

As they entered the Babies R Us Meredith angled her travel mug so Zola couldn't whack it and send it flying to the ground—again.

"Are you sure you don't want to get a stroller, and, you know, put her in it?" Lexie asked.

"I like having her in here." Meredith tapped her other hand against Zola's back. The weight of the baby seemed to balance her when she felt precariously close to falling of the edge. "Besides, I think Derek will want to do the stroller thing. He's already been researching them. It's like buying a car to him."

She didn't mention how much more thought, effort and research Derek had put into the eventualities of Zola coming home than she had. It wasn't that she didn't want her. She honestly hadn't believed it would happen.

"I think Mark prefers the Snuggie for Sofia, too. At least, he always has her in it. Then again, the stroller would be kind of unwieldy at the hospital."

"You've discussed Snuggies with Mark?"

Lexie's cheeks turned pink as she grabbed a cart and pushed it toward the bright pink section of the store they assumed held the girls' clothes. "Not really. He's just…around. Mark and I are done. He gave me to Jackson yesterday."

"What?" Meredith scanned the sea of tiny outfits, trying to see Zola in any of them. She'd pictured choosing baby clothes for so long, but never for a specific baby. Now that she had a living, babbling recipient it was harder to make decisions. "What if she doesn't like any of this stuff?" she said, sifting through a rack. "What if she hates me forever because I make her wear a shirt with frogs and she hates frogs?"

"First of all, she's six months old." Lexie tossed the offending shirt into the cart. "Second of all, the very fact that you care about that shows you're better than some moms. Mine, for instance, insisted on smocked dresses for Molly and I until we were in the sixth grade. I wanted to take a blowtorch to the things." She steered the cart toward a rack of sun dresses and exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, these are so cute!"

Meredith couldn't help smiling at the purple dress Lexie pulled out and held up to Zola. The moment reminded her of shopping with Izzie, the thrill her friend always got once she made a find. She missed Izzie fiercely for a second. It was weird how, though Izzie had been gone for almost two years, she missed her smile at times like this—times when she would have been annoying the crap out of Meredith.

"Is she wearing six months, or smaller?"

"Um… let me check. Can I check, Zola?" Zola raised her head at the sound of her voice and sucked contentedly on her pacifier as Meredith tugged he tag from the back of her shirt. "Yup. Six months. She's right on track sizewise, aren't you? They fattened you up at the hospital."

While she tucked the tag back in, she met the eyes of another woman whose toddler had opened a package of socks and was happily tossing them out of the cart. The woman's eyes had narrowed at Meredith, judging her for not knowing Zola's t-shirt size, like maybe she should be calling the missing child hotline, in case Zola had been stolen or something.

Meredith knew it wasn't her fault she didn't know how big Zola's clothes were, but she promised herself that from now on she'd know all those things, and more. "Green," she said, catching sight of the pacifier. "She likes green."

Lexie raised her eyebrows, so Meredith countered with, "He _gave_ you to Jackson?"

"Yup. Speech and everything. Said he was letting me go."

The words tugged at a memory Meredith didn't want to think about at the moment; one of the many speeches that'd reminded her how much she loved Derek, in spite of how much she hated him. "Derek said that once."

Lexie maneuvered the cart away from the dresses, toward a rack of Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls. "He did?"

"Yup. Back when I was dating the vet. The vet, who loved me, and had plans. Derek said he was a good guy, and to go if I'd be happy with him."

Lexie studied the brass fastener of a pair of overalls for a long moment before she murmured, "But you didn't."

"No." Meredith swallowed the sudden lump in her throat—the same one she'd gotten while she told Finn she wished Derek wasn't the one. "I let Finn go. Derek was it for me after that."

The hanger and its overalls clattered into the cart. Zola turned to the noise, but Meredith was watching Lexie's face. She could read it easily now, she knew what the other woman was wondering. The parallels between them were so apparent, Lexie had to be wondering how much like Meredith she was—and what that meant about Mark.

Meredith touched her arm. "Let's go. Help me pick out the toys a bright and shiny child needs, instead of a dark and twisty one."

"No Anatomy Jane for Zola?"

"Only if she wants one. Zola's future is going to be up to her."

"Hear that, kiddo?" Lexie playfully tapped Zola on the arm. "Start picking out your tattoos now."

Meredith winced. "Oh God. Derek will—." She stopped. What would Derek do? Would they be having arguments about self-expression? Or would Meredith even be lucid enough to know the twenty-something with the butterfly tramp stamp was her daughter?

"Derek will come back from New York armed with a Zola-sized Yankees cap," Lexie said, grabbing Meredith's hand and pulling her in the direction of the toy section. They pulled the cart up in front of a rack of stuffed toys. Meredith reached for a bear—wasn't that what babies usually got?—but Zola had other ideas. She twisted back and lunged. She might have flung herself out of the Snuggie, if Meredith hadn't put her hand firmly against her back.

Lexie reached over and retrieved the floppy stuffed frog off the rack she'd been aiming for. Zola immediately stuffed the flipper in her mouth, christening it. "You were saying about frogs?"

Meredith laughed, but not at her sister. Her happiness was for Zola, who already knew to get her hands on what she wanted by herself.

While Lexie surveyed the bookshelves a few minutes later, searching for the classics, as opposed to the _Illustrated Science Encyclopedia _Meredith had read as a child, Meredith's phone rang. Although she knew Derek wouldn't have even landed in New York yet, her heartbeat still sped up while she fished it out of her purse. It increased even more when she saw the name on the caller ID.

"Janet, is something wrong?"

"No, not at all," the social worker soothed. "I wanted to see how the day is going."

"Well. It's going well. We're shopping now. For baby things. For Zola."

"That's great. Did she have a good night?"

Meredith hesitated, absently stroking Zola's hand with a finger. "She…took a while to go to sleep. It was a little hectic for all of us."

"That's to be expected. She'll adjust to her new environment soon." Zola squealed around her pacifier, as if she knew she was being talked about and wanted to comment. Meredith cringed, knowing how loud that must have sounded on Janet's end. "She sounds happy. Was your husband surprised?"

"You have no idea. I mean…definitely."

"Good. Well, I also wanted to let you know I've been in touch with an Early Intervention Coordinator about Zola, and they'd like her to get a physical therapy evaluation and be seen by an orthopedist. I know she had some evaluations in the hospital, but they were focused on the more pressing issues. With a child with special needs it's important to also get a handle on the long-term issues as soon as possible."

"Of course. That makes sense. Just tell me who to call."

"Can you take down a number?"

"Um. Sure. Just a second." She rummaged through the purse at her side, awkwardly balancing the phone and Zola. Lexie dumped a pile of books in the cart to lift Zola from her Snuggie at the same moment Meredith lifted her head to switch her cell to the other side. Zola's foot—clad in cute but not-functional sneakers—clipped Meredith in the chin. She bit her tongue to keep from swearing into the mouthpiece, but finally retrieved a pad of paper and a pen.

Only once she'd said, "Ready," did she notice she'd pulled a pack of blue post-its from the depths of her bag.

***

After they'd effectively cleaned out Babies R Us—neglecting only the stroller and the crib, both of which Meredith insisted Derek needed to be a part of buying—Lexie drove back to Meredith's while her sister sat in the back of the car, narrating the trip to Zola.

"I wonder if it's strange for her," she said while they unloaded bags into the driveway. "How much do you think she remembers about Malawi?"

"Probably not a lot. Soon all she'll know is life here, with you." Lexie hefted the box with the highchair out of the trunk (Delivery guys were coming with the big furniture, but she got the honor of unloading what they could fit into Meredith's Jeep). The strain of the box's weight had to be what made her keep rambling. "Sometimes it's hard for me to remember a time before I knew you, you know? I used to have this list in my room of things I'd never done."

She shoved the box toward the steps, half-wishing they'd waited for Jackson to be around to do all this. "Which is weird, because half the time you don't know you haven't done something 'til you do it, like I never realized how blue a sky could be until I saw the one in Amsterdam, so there wasn't a point in writing it down until I saw it."

She tipped the box up to the porch, and pushed sweaty hair away from her face. "Zola, you better really like this chair. But number one on the list was meeting my big sister. Now I can't even remember a time before I crossed it off."

Meredith reached down to pick a flower from the bushes next to the porch railing. "You kept it until you started your residency?" She twirled the flower against Zola's cheek and the baby giggled.

Lexie's hands slipped, and the corner of the box came down on the toe of right foot. "Son of a—dingo!" she corrected, with one glance at Zola. While she corrected her hold on the box, the truck from the store pulled up. Soon beefy guys had taken charge of the high chair, as well as the rocker and changing table they were somehow going to fit into Meredith's bedroom.

"Why not give her Alex's room?" Lexie asked, while Meredith fixed Zola a bottle, and the men banged around upstairs.

"Cristina's there now. And… I don't know. That room was George's. He got the biggest room." She smiled; twisting the cap of the bottle long after it had been secured. Zola grabbed for it and brought her back to the present. "But I came home one night, and he was gone. Alex took it and then…" She sank into a kitchen chair waving her hand to indicate (Lexie assumed) the repetition of the line, and Lexie became aware of the weight she carried on her shoulders. "I don't want to come home one day and find her gone."

Before Lexie could comment, one of the men yelled from the stairs. "Do you have a Phillip's head down there?"

The panicked expression on Meredith's face said she had no earthly idea. "I'll go check," Lexie said. She headed for the basement and found the toolbox quickly. Picking it up, she wondered how long it had sat there. Sometimes she wandered the house, imagining her dad traipsing the halls, long before she was born, building a life. He'd have put together a crib there. He'd fed a crying baby in the same kitchen.

Did Meredith think about that?

Did she see Ellis Grey doing the same things?

As unprepared as those two must have been to be parents, Lexie couldn't imagine them attempting to fit a baby's room worth of furniture into the master bedroom alongside their bedroom suite. The workman she handed the screwdriver to looked as if he might be boxing himself into the corner of the room by putting together the changing table.

"Are they almost done? I think she needs a nap," Meredith said once Lexie had delivered the box. Zola rubbed her eyes, proving the point.

"It's wall-to-wall furniture in there, Mer."

"My dorm room in undergrad was like that. If I can navigate around furniture in all states of intoxication, I can do it with a baby." She smiled. Lexie recognized the devilish look from long, long ago. "We'll be fine, won't we Zola? Let's go see all your new things." She headed for the stairs. Lexie took it upon herself to wash the bottle. Every little bit would help Meredith out while Derek was gone.

She stood at the sink, thinking back to the conversation they'd had examining baby clothes. Meredith's words had made the hair on Lexie's neck stand up in the same way it had after Jackson said he didn't mind getting chief resident because he had her. He'd been so noble to leave the study for fear of tying his name to it—but he also seemed afraid of his name. He hung back in the shadows, thinking his success wouldn't mean anything thanks to his grandfather.

Lexie didn't get it. The few times she'd been asked if she was related to Ellis Grey, she'd said, "Sort of." Anything to get a leg up. Meredith had admitted that her name had made up for her dubious recommendation letters going into med school. Jackson had _denied_ his paternity. His humility was inspiring, but it could also be seen as a lack of drive.

Mark had drive in everything he did, medicine and family. He wanted everything life could give him. She tried to make Jackson want that, but he seemed content with his lot.

How much of a freak was she to not understand that?

The slam of the front door startled her, and she realized she'd been letting hot water flow over the top of the bottle for so long it was practically sterile. "Your phone's ringing," Meredith said, coming into the kitchen. She made a beeline for the refrigerator, but turned around to follow Lexie through to the living room a split second later, drawn by a wail from upstairs.

"She might just be overtired and fussy!" Lexie called, grabbing her phone to push talk. The pounding of Meredith's feet on the stairs proved that this was no time to have any sort of crying-it-out argument.

"Hello?"

"Lex. Is this a bad time?"

She sank onto the couch and drew her knees to her chest. The gravelly tone of Mark's voice caused her heart to contract like he still had a hold on it, though she told herself it was only because of how strained he sounded. "No, of course not."

He exhaled into the phone. "Good. I'm…uh…leaving for New York, but I got to the airport kind of early, and I can't concentrate on anything. Mrs. Shepherd she… she might as well be my mom, you know?"

"I know. I met her."

"That's right. She likes you. She'd never liked a girl I brought home before, but she liked you."

"What about when you dated her daughters? Didn't she like them?"

Mark laughed. "I guess she'd always figured my joining the family officially one way or another was inevitable."

Lexie coughed, but neither of them acknowledged that even dating her he'd only been one degree removed from being a Shepherd.

"I remember one time, though, she caught me and Kathleen on the stairs…" His voice disappeared into the past and she let him relate the story, followed by another about the prank he'd talked Shepherd into playing at their high school prom. She let him talk for the same reason she'd sat with him during the night of Callie's accident, because he needed someone, because his family might have been falling apart in front of his face. They both valued family, maybe a little too much.

Jackson almost never talked about his family.

She didn't leave the couch throughout their entire conversation. The noises from upstairs, if there were any, didn't reach her. When she heard the echo of the tinny voice of the gate agent's announcement over the airport loudspeaker she glanced around the room, surprised to see late-afternoon light pouring in through the tall windows.

"Time to board," Mark said. "Thanks for listening."

"It's what friends are for. We're friends, right?" She cringed as she said it, thinking she should have a phone cord to wrap around her fingers the way she had while she tied up her parents' phone as a teenager.

"Yeah. We're friends Little Grey."

She wrinkled her nose at the nickname, and a second later he was gone. She leaned her head back against the cushions of the sofa, a dumb smile on her face.

"Have you been on the phone this whole time?"

She rolled her head slightly to the left. Meredith stood in the doorway to the living room with Zola in one arm, and a blanket folded across the other. "Yeah."

"Hold her a sec." Meredith thrust Zola into her arms, and spread the blanket out on the floor. "With Mark?"

"Yeah. Don't give me that look. We're friends."

Meredith sat Zola on the blanket, putting two stuffed toys and a set of plastic keys within the baby's reach. She sat cross-legged next to her, and watched her while she spoke to Lexie. "Derek and I tried that. The being friends thing."

"Did it work?" Lexie watched Zola lunge forward for the keys. The baby shook them gleefully in both hands. She started to overbalance. Meredith's hands shot out to catch her, but Zola managed to get a tiny hand down to steady herself before intervention was necessary. "Smart girl."

"Isn't she? She's got this sitting thing down. And no, it didn't. Or, it did, until our dog died and we had sex at the prom the hospital threw for the chief's niece."

"Then I'll avoid all black tie affairs Mark might attend."

"Good plan. I'm going to get my phone so Derek can have a picture of her to show off in New York. Be right back."

Lexie slid onto the floor to take Meredith's spot in front of Zola. Almost as soon as Meredith went out of sight, Zola's face crumpled. The earsplitting scream she let out a second later brought Meredith careening back into the room, nearly falling over the end table in her rush. "What happened?" She tossed the phone into Lexie's lap and scooped Zola up.

"Nothing! Is she wet?"

"I just changed her. I'm surprisingly good at diaper changing. I think it's all the dressing changes we had to do as med students. What is it Zola? I wish you could tell me." Meredith bounced the baby gently in her arms. Zola whimpered a few more times, but after a second or two in Mer's arms, she calmed. "Well. That's better. Decided those keys weren't for you, huh? How 'bout a bunny?" She sat down on the blanket, and handed Zola the stuffed bunny. Zola chewed on its ears.

Lexie picked up the phone and snapped two pictures of Zola happily settled on Meredith's lap. All part of her mission to make Shepherd realize how stupid he'd been to ever doubt his wife's mothering skills.

And to make Meredith realize that Zola's hissy fit hadn't had anything to do with the stupid plastic keys.


	5. Chapter Four

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

"What are you watching?"

Meredith put a finger to her lips and gestured to the baby sleeping at her side. Cristina pursed her lips, but came carefully into the bedroom. She stepped carefully over the bag of diapers the pediatric nurse had given Meredith, and angled herself through the small space between the changing table and the foot of the bed.

"This place is a death trap."

"It's a stop-gap."

"Whatever. Don't tell me you're exposing her to those stupid baby shows that are always on in Peds."

"Do you know me at all? No. It's a video about teaching babies sign language. April suggested it. Apparently, she saw a mom on the floor doing it while she was on Stark's service. Helps them communicate now and develop language skills later."

"She's going to belong to you and Shepherd. I don't think talking is going to be a problem."

"Talking, yes. Communicating…not so much. Plus, if she does have problems with her legs, I figure anything that can give her an edge will be helpful. And sometimes when I'm sitting with her I don't know what to do. I feel like an idiot playing peek-a-boo. It's not in my genes. But this." She motioned to the screen. "I can do. I hope."

"You are a good teacher," Cristina said. Meredith shrugged, and there was a pause before Cristina blurted, "I hid from him in a supply closet."

"You hid from Owen?" Meredith whispered, trying to emphasize the _I'm being quiet_ tone. She paused the video playing on her laptop so she could close the lid of and set it on the floor.

"Can we talk in my—in another room?"

"I… She just went to sleep. I don't want her to wake up alone in here." To Meredith's surprise, Cristina didn't argue with this.

"Guess I'll have to adjust to being a third wheel."

"You adjusted to Derek."

"I _tolerate_ Derek."

Meredith put her hand protectively on Zola's back without thinking. The ghost of Cristina's usual sardonic smirk made her want to shield the baby from the pain radiating off of her.

"And you tolerated Owen… You never really liked him, did you?"

"Of course I did."

"Anyone ever tell you you're a horrible liar?"

"Ii _did/i_. As a doctor, he's great. And he's a good man. I just…" Meredith rested a hand behind her head, trying to find the words that wouldn't make Cristina angry if or when she mended things with Owen, and reexamined this conversation. "After he tried to strangle you, I didn't trust him. I know he couldn't help it, and the PTSD is being treated, but… Now that I've seen how respectful you've been to his needs, it pisses me off that he won't even listen to yours."

"Damn right," Cristina said. Zola sighed in her sleep, and Cristina's eyes flickered to her. Meredith watched a small, sad smile form on her friend's face. "He'd be a good dad. And, hell, I'd be a kickass mom, if I wanted to be. But I don't want to be. What's so wrong with that?"

Hearing always-stubborn Cristina question her convictions this way made Meredith's heart shatter as if Gary Clark had managed to come back and hit it with a bullet a year too late. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. People who don't want kids shouldn't have kids."

"Like Ellis Grey? Because that's not a great example considering how much I've benefited personally from her reproducing."

Meredith shook her head. "No. My mother wanted me in the way a super-villain wants a clone. She just didn't know how to raise me." Cristina would read the meaning into her words, the assumptions about herself. It was why their friendship worked so well.

"Meredith." The calm tone in her voice made Meredith turn to meet her eyes. "Ellis Grey would never be learning how to teach her baby sign language just so she could make sure she knew what the kid wanted a few months before any other mother."

"True," Meredith murmured, tracing one of the frogs on Zola's new blanket with a finger. _But also not,_ she thought, while Cristina opened the laptop and started the video up again.

_Because Mom always wanted me to be ahead of the curve. Isn't that what I want for Zola? _

She tore her eyes away from the baby to watch the disembodied hands in the movie sign _more_, but glanced back a second later to watch Zola curl her fist around the foot of her stuffed frog. _No,_ she answered herself, with the same gleam of satisfaction she got when she realized she'd mastered a surgical technique she'd never used before.

_Because if she never masters a single one of these things, I'll still love her exactly the same amount._

She and Cristina sat there watching the videos for a long time, until Meredith reluctantly admitted she needed sleep. She was about to offer to let Cristina stay there, but her friend headed to the door without hesitation. A second later, she turned and wrapped her arms around herself, as if she were afraid of a blow coming her way.

"Mer?"

"Yeah?" Meredith stifled a yawn while she stood up to put the computer on the dresser.

"My appointment to get… for the termination, is next week. Do I…should I ask someone else to be my person?"

Meredith hadn't seen this fragile expression on Cristina's face since right after the shooting. "Cristina, I will always be your person." The promise made the air in the bedroom heavy for a long minute before Meredith shrugged. "Besides, who would you ask? Evil Spawn?"

Cristina smiled, which had been Meredith's intent, but after she left the room Meredith couldn't help but glance at Zola and sent a silent apology to the powers that be for calling Alex evil. In many ways he was, but she owed the presence of the baby to the one moment he'd chosen not to be.

***

_Meredith:_

_She rolled from her back to her front! Have you seen her do that before?_

Lexie rolled her eyes at the third text she'd gotten from Meredith that morning. The first had been a picture of Zola in her Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls, which Lexie had dutifully shown to everyone who'd look. The second had been a report on Zola's preference for the bright green stuffed frog they'd bought over her rabbit. (Lexie had already seen that in action when the rabbit had been thrown across the room the night before.) The only thing unique about this message was how the hell Meredith thought Lexie might know more than her. In the two days Zola had been home, she'd only been out of Meredith's sight when she slept.

"Other Grey, are you planning on paying attention?" Dr. Bailey asked, a split second before she whacked Lexie in the head with a manila file folder.

Lexie winced, and quickly scrolled up in the text conversation. With one tap on her iPhone screen, she enlarged the picture of Zola and held it over her shoulder. Bailey let out an audible _aw_, and took the phone from Lexie.

Lexie grinned to herself, and turned back to the monotonous man in the front of the auditorium. The chief had flown him in spur-of-the-moment to lecture them all on ethics. A remark from Jackson that the person who most needed to hear this was home, with the crying baby who'd kept them up all night, had gotten him a death glare from Alex, who'd _definitely_ had a hand in getting them into this in the first place. (Some days Lexie thought a flowchart of the relationships at Seattle Grace would be much larger than the surgical board.)

Bailey tapped her on the shoulder. Lexie reached for the phone, and it buzzed between them. Lexie scanned the screen.

_She won't stop crying, and she's a drool factory. Is this teething?_

"How should I know?" Lexie whispered, as if Meredith were there to be questioned.

"I got it." Bailey took the phone back and began tapping furiously. "Does she have teething rings, or will me telling her to put one in the freezer send her into a state of panic?"

"Um…" Lexie thought back to the contents of the bags they'd dragged home. "Yeah. We've got those. I'm not sure Zola's teething, though. She's been having trouble letting Meredith out—"

"Some of us are trying to pay attention, you know," April snapped from her seat ahead of Lexie. Once she'd turned around, Lexie made a face at her back. Jackson touched the side of his hand against hers, but she jerked it away. April may have been his friend, but she hadn't officially started as chief resident, and she already had a huge stick of rule-following up her ass.

While Lexie tried to focus on the speaker, she heard her phone vibrating periodically as Bailey went back and forth with Meredith. Another few minutes, and Bailey stood, apologizing as she slid out of the auditorium. Lexie imagined her in the hall, using her no-nonsense, I am Doctor Bailey and I have done all of this before you, voice to soothe Meredith. Her sister needed that. She had to be the voice of reason herself too much. Like with Sadie. Lexie rested her head on her forehead, and closed her eyes. For a second she stood in the bar of a hostel, watching two girls have a heated argument from opposite sides of a pool table.

"You okay?" Jackson's hand landed heavily on her shoulder.

"Hmm? Yeah, just memories."

"About what?"

She parted her lips, unsure about answering. No one knew about that, not even Mark. The chance to respond got taken away from her anyway, by another hiss from Princess April.

Bailey came back a second later, phone in hand. Lexie took it, and saw a missed text from Mark. While Lexie took the phone, Bailey whispered"Let me know when you get off today. I'm going to follow you out to the Residents' Residence."

Jackson snorted, but April didn't make a sound. Lexie found it vaguely satisfying that she still feared Dr. Bailey. Once Jackson seemed to be engrossed once more in whatever the speaker had to say, Lexie scrolled to Mark's message.

_Call me when you get off. Not an emergency, but I need someone to talk to about this. Having a mother on the line is a little too close to home for Callie right now_.

Lexie shifted her eyes to Callie, who sat two rows over, her hand entwined with Dr. Robbins'. Lexie'd always had a weird relationship with the ortho resident. First, Callie had been George's ex-wife, then Mark's sometimes-lover, then the one who took Mark away from Lexie, without meaning to, again. So, Lexie figured she had a right to be jealous. She felt bad about the situation with Callie's mom, but there was a small thrill of triumph at being the only person Mark could confide in.

_Oh Lex,_ said a voice in her head, which sounded suspiciously like Meredith's. _I love you, but you have jealously issues, you know? Not just about Mark—but seriously, you're not even with him! About me, too. With Cristina, Izzie, April.._.

Oh how well Lexie knew. And funny how the one her head-Meredith left out of the list was the one who'd been the first target of her Meredith-envy.

Sadie.

The sound of applause jerked her out of her daydreams again, and she joined in belatedly. She could have been applauding her own firing, for all she knew. It didn't matter. One lecture on ethics wouldn't reform the hospital where a woman had cut her lover's LVAD wire, and another doctor had given the chief's wife a drug the computers said she didn't deserve. (And, really, Lexie wasn't sure she wanted it to.)

That night, Bailey preceded her into the house, armed with a bag of William George Bailey Jones's old toys, and her soothing manner. Meredith met them at the door, still wearing her pajamas. "I can't feel my arms," she declared. Zola watched them with one open eye, her head resting on Meredith's shoulder. "She hates the swing. She hates the high chair. She hates the port-a-crib."

"Well, she seems to love you," Bailey countered. This, at least, shut Meredith up, and gave Lexie the push she needed to go out to the porch swing and call Mark.

He answered on the second ring. "Hey, Lex."

"Hi. Is this a bad time?"

"No, it's perfect. Mrs. Shepherd made me drag Derek back to the hotel so he could get some rest. He's a mess." Lexie thought of the stained burp cloth on Meredith's shoulder and the tangles in her hair. Even thousands of miles apart, they'd make a good pair.

"And you?"

"I'm a mess, too. She's going to have surgery this week. Bypass."

"Oh Mark. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, it sucks pretty bad." He sighed heavily into the phone, but his voice perked up at the next sentence. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Derek and I put dye in Nancy's shampoo the week before class pictures?"

"No. What happened?"

"We…er…dyed her hair the week before class pictures. Unfortunately, Mrs. Shepherd took it out six days before class pictures. We perfected our tactics after that."

"I'm sure you did," Lexie said, swinging her legs up onto the seat next to her. "I'm sure you did.


	6. Chapter Five

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

Meredith had no idea that holding a baby all day could be exhausting, but here she was at the end of the day, holding a baby and exhausted. Zola refused to eat in her highchair. She wouldn't bounce in the swing Meredith and Lexie had painstakingly set up the night before, positioning it between the kitchen and living room so Zola could see Meredith if she were in either room. She wouldn't stay on her blanket on the floor, even when enticed with her frog or the toys with bright lights and loud noises.

And Meredith wasn't exactly _against_ holding her, but she would like to, say, be able to pee at some point other than during Zola's infrequent and fitful naps. She tried to call Derek during one of these, but he answered only long enough to say, "I'm with Mom now. Is something wrong?"

Meredith gave herself a lot of credit for not commenting on his _assuming_ something had gone wrong. Zola'd woken up three minutes later, anyway, and wailed from the bedroom until Meredith had gotten there to take her in her arms once more.

"It shouldn't be positioning," she said while Bailey took Zola from her. "Not with the shunt in place."

"I don't think it's got anything to do with that." Bailey stroked Zola's cheek. Everyone did this when they first met her. Her chubby cheeks were irresistible. Meredith felt a weird sense of pride thinking this. It wasn't like her genetics had led to those cheeks.

Bailey stepped backward to sit on the sofa. Meredith sank down next to her, flexing her arms. Zola lunged for her, a tiny whine escaping her lips. Meredith reached her hands out, but Bailey held Zola firmly in her lap. "She's right here, baby girl," she said. "What's she calling you?"

"Meredith. For now. I don't want to confuse her if…" Meredith swallowed. The _if_ had gotten harder and harder to think about.

"Meredith's right there. See her? Think about it from her perspective, Grey. Six-month-old babies are just starting to get clingy, but she's had two familiar places stripped away from her in six weeks. You're the only thing that's gone from one of those places to the other. She's going to latch onto you. Once she realizes you're not going anywhere, she'll relax. Won't you, you beautiful little thing?"

Meredith smiled at the reassurance, but it would've made her feel a lot better if she knew for sure she could keep the promise not to go anywhere.

"I hope she does it soon," Meredith sighed, letting Zola have one of her fingers, which the baby immediately began to gnaw. "They want me to take her in for an evaluation tomorrow morning, for Early Intervention services. I've read a little bit about what to expect." She nodded toward the laptop, which had been christened with Zola-drool more than once that day. "It's sort of overwhelming. Physical therapy, assistive devices, adaptive learning…It's a lot."

_And Derek's not here,_ she thought. Derek had been the one doing the research, filling out the paperwork for Zola. He'd met with the contractor every time there was a delay on the house. She followed his lead on all of it, only caring that they got the baby, somehow, or that the tub was deep enough. The years hadn't stripped her of the attitude she'd had at the first meeting at the nursing home with her mother, she was way out of her league.

"As it happens, I'm off tomorrow."

She whipped her head over to Bailey. "Oh, I wasn't asking—!"

"I know you weren't. You can handle it all, Grey, even if you think you can't. You handled your mother's treatments. You got Shepherd back in form after the shooting. You can do it all on your own, but you don't have to. I've been on my own with a child, it's not easy, no matter how temporary it is."

It felt weak, somehow, to accept the offer, like it'd be proving she couldn't do it all herself, that she needed more help than Zola's "true" mother would need. But the idea of having another adult present at the meetings, particularly if Zola decided to have yet another screaming fit…. It was tempting.

"Are you sure you don't mind?"

"It takes a village to raise a child. Luckily, you've got a village."

Meredith smiled. "You have a point."

"I'm Doctor Bailey. I always have a point. Now let's see if we can get this little darling used to her highchair."

As soon as Zola's hand left Meredith's she began to squall. Meredith sighed. It would be a long evening.

As it turned out, the miracle needed to make Zola tolerate the chair wasn't Bailey's singing, or Meredith's cajoling. It was the sheer joy she got from flinging spoonfuls of strained peas at the walls.

"Will those stains ever come out? I don't think the next owners are going to like them." Meredith tugged out the tray of the chair and took Zola in her arms to give her a bottle. The consequence of giving Zola the spoon had been that she didn't get much of the gloppy food into her mouth. Bailey said the important part was her learning to grip the spoon and guide it, since her bottles gave her most of the nutrients she needed.

"You're really selling this place?"

"I meant to do it five years ago. Once our house is finished…" Meredith shrugged. "I've thought about continuing to rent it out—milk, Zola?" she added, squeezing her hand in the sign for the word. "But it was meant to be a family home. My parents bought it for that, after all."

"Makes sense. And I imagine there are memories you'd rather not hold onto."

She shrugged. "I dunno. Sometimes it feels like George is still here. I find his stuff lying around sometimes. Izzie's too. Actually, I still have a few pairs of her shoes."

Bailey stood up with the empty bowl of peas, and began to run water into it. "Interesting. Very interesting, Grey."

"What? That I believe in ghosts? I don't. That would be crazy. Ghosts are definitely crazy."

"Not ghosts. You didn't say Denny Duquette was running around here. I meant that you replaced your old memories of this place when you decided to stay here. It's an interesting way of dealing with things. That's all."

Meredith shrugged again. With the mention of Denny Duqette she remembered Izzie covering the kitchen in muffins. Bailey had come here then, to save her. Bailey saved them all, at one point or another, and she never asked them for thanks. This made Meredith realize she had had at least one positive example of how to be a mother. She started to say something to this effect, even just thank you, but Bailey was putting on her coat, and Meredith couldn't find the words.

"I should go home. I've got to pick up my little man from his daddy's house."

Meredith stood to show her out, shifting Zola to her shoulder. "Say bye-bye Zola," she said waving exaggeratedly at Bailey. "Bye-bye."

Zola burped.

"I'll take that." Bailey laughed.

After she drove off, Meredith sank down onto the swing next to Lexie, who was staring raptly at the phone in her hand.

"You're covered in green stuff," Lexie observed.

"It's better than blood…. I think. Zola sat in her high-chair tonight." She blew lightly on the crown of Zola's head. Zola let out a shriek of laughter. Shifting so the baby sat facing her, Meredith took the tiny hands in hers and tapped them together. "More? More?" she said, narrating the sign. Zola let out another shriek, and Meredith blew again.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Lexie's wistful smile. "You're good with her."

"I didn't feel like it most of today. Every time I tried to put her down somewhere she looked so totally betrayed. I felt as in over my head as I was the first day of my internship. More, really. It's like going into that OR with only a few days of med school under my belt."

"That's an absolutely terrifying thought."

"Exactly. And now there's one life on the line, and somehow she means more to me than any patient I've ever had."

As if to confirm the point, Zola shrieked once more. The ear-splitting sound was eons better than crying. Meredith wouldn't mind if she could just keep her from crying again for a few hours. With the next item on their agenda, it didn't seem likely.

"Come on, Zo," she said. "Let's see how much you hate the bath." She stood, but halfway to the door she turned to Lexie. "Were you talking to Mark again?"

Lexie's face went red, and she opened her mouth to answer, but the sound of a motor made her eyes flicker to the driveway. Jackson got out of his car, armed with a bag of take-out food. Lexie stood up and ran to meet him.

Meredith would know that look of guilt from hundreds of miles away. She'd worn it herself, the moment before she fled from Finn at the prom.

***

That night after they'd eaten, Lexie sat with Jackson in his room, listening to the evening noises in the house around them. She recognized April's shriek followed by hurried apologizing. In response, Cristina said, "What? Haven't you ever seen a baby naked?"

Lexie smirked, thinking of what April had _almost_ seen the time she'd barged into Lexie and Jackson in the bathroom.

"It's a madhouse in here," Jackson said, tossing a tiny basketball into the hoop above his door. Lexie stretched her legs out in front of her, touching her hands to the tips of her toes in an exercise she assumed came from a forgotten ballet class. "April and I moved in because our apartment felt too quiet after… After what happened, but now… It's bursting at the seams."

Lexie shrugged. The frathouse feeling of Meredith's had comforted her, after the life she'd built with George—and then Mark—collapsed. She didn't have to make it homey with stolen hospital items. In a way, they were all stolen from the hospital, flitting in and out, but never alone.

"I had a thought… and you don't have to say anything right now, okay? It's just a thought, but Shepherd and Grey are building a house, right?"

"They've been building a house for a over year."

"But with the kid, they'll be rushing it, right? And until then, this place is going to keep looking like Babies R Us threw up inside it."

"Cristina won't be here long. They'll give Zola that room," Lexie said, though Meredith had said they wouldn't.

"Unless Karev wants the room back. There's always someone."

"You were the someone, once. We all were."

"And I'm grateful. But there's a reason it's a revolving door." Jackson slid from the bed into the spot behind her, so his legs straddled her. "People move out. They move on. I thought maybe…maybe we could move on." He kissed her neck to punctuate the sentence. Her hand automatically went to the side of his face. She cupped his cheek, tilting her head toward his in a way that had become familiar. Outwardly, she knew she'd responded the way he wanted.

Inside, she screamed, because she had no idea if she wanted this. She should have. Jackson was _such_ a good guy. She should be able to see him in a space that was theirs, in an apartment somewhere, properly furnished, where her sister would be a visitor, where, maybe one day, they'd bring kids of their own, kids with Jackson's eyes.

She'd had these thoughts before, though, so recently that the baby she glanced down at in her dreams still had Mark's gray eyes—no matter how done with him she was—and she didn't know how to replace them with Jackson's.

But she _should, _she _should_, she _should_.

"Lex? You okay?"

"Hmm?" she said, trying to sound light. "Yeah. I'm just gonna….gonna go see if Meredith needs help."

Jackson released her with a heavy sigh. "When Shepherd gets back, will I have dibs on you again?"

She shot him a look while she pulled up on his dresser. "Jackson, she's my sister. If she needs help, I'll be there. That's a debt that goes way back."

He raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything more. She gently shut his door, but then plastered herself against it, breathing so erratically that she had no idea how she'd kept her cool in there. All she could think was _he has plans._

Over her own rattled breathing, she heard the familiar chiming of Meredith's phone. She ducked her head into the bedroom, in case Mer needed a hand to get it. At least then her words to Jackson wouldn't be a lie.

The scene she saw in the bedroom took her breath away. Meredith sat in the rocker that'd been stuffed into the corner between the dresser and the wall. Zola's head was pillowed on her arm, and Meredith's eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling in slumber.

The phone rang again, and Lexie grabbed it before it could wake them. "Hello?"

"Mer, it's me." Shepherd's voice sounded as raw as Mark's had earlier in the day. "Sorry about earlier."

"It's not Meredith. It's Lexie."

"Lexie? Is something wrong?"

"No, but she's sleeping and I'm not waking her up for you to guilt her more."

"She's asleep already? It's eight-thirty there."

Lexie took the phone into the hall; afraid that what she had to say, in the volume she had to say it, might wake her sister. "Yeah, and she's exhausted. She's been taking care of a baby all day, Derek, a baby who wasn't prepared to be in an all-new environment and needs a lot of attention. On top that, she's got the added worry that she'll do one thing wrong and you'll, like, take the baby away which probably isn't helping."

"I'd never—. She's the one who said…. I don't think Meredith will be a bad mother."

"I'm not the one you need to be telling that too."

"Which is why you're not the one I called."

Lexie bit her lip. This was true. "I know. I'll tell her to call you."

"Please do." He spoke with the crisp tone he used when asking a nurse to run a test. Lexie knew she'd upset him, so she was willing to upset him a little more.

"Derek, I'm very sorry about your mom, but you should know that if you use this as a way to hurt my sister any more I will kill you." She hung up, and then opened the door to replace Meredith's phone. Instead of leaving to face Jackson again, or worse have him come looking for her, she shut the door and lay down on the bed with her hands behind her head.

She must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew it was dark, and Meredith was gently sliding the comforter out from under her. Lexie sat up, but Meredith put her hand on her shoulder. "Stay." Always, she knew what Lexie needed.

Lexie shifted, feeling next to her for a pillow, which she assumed cushioned Zola. "Mer?" she whispered into the darkness.

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever think it would've been different if you'd…chosen differently? I mean… he's hurt you, so deeply." She wondered if she'd need to explain more, but Meredith didn't miss a beat.

"He's loved me even more deeply. I never used to believe in that great love, you know? The one with the highest highs and the lowest lows? I figured it was supposed to be the way it was with Finn. Easy, you know? But then I realized…. I wasn't built for the equilibrium."

Lexie turned this over in her mind for so long that the air had filled with the sound of Meredith's snores before she could bring herself to ask aloud, "Am I?"


	7. Chapter Six

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

Meredith glanced out the window by her bed at the blue sky. It seemed wrong to keep Zola cooped up inside after the morning they'd had, particularly when Seattle was being so inclimate lately. "What do you say, Zo?" she said, securing the tape on what felt like the zillionth diaper change of the day. "Want to go to the park?"

Zola gurgled, which Meredith took as consent. The speech therapist had been impressed with Meredith's initiative with the signing, though she warned it might take Zola a while to catch on, because English wasn't her first language. Meredith had time. Bailey had come to meet her armed with the news that the chief was fighting with the board to put Meredith on suspension. He suggested a month, but believed the board might fight for longer.

"He implied that you could meld it into maternity leave, if you wanted to."

Meredith wondered if she should've been more surprised that the idea already seemed a little appealing. It'd give Zola the chance to get truly acclimated before she had to start daycare, and she could supervise the move to the new house…

_Further delaying the end of your residency, Meredith? _her mother said in her head. _It's bad enough that you're not going to be chief resident._

She ignored the warring mother-figure voices to slide Zola into the Snuggie and set off for the park down the road, a place she hadn't been since she was five. The whole way there, she spoke softly to Zola. The few people out walking their dogs didn't give her a second glance.

"You know, Zola, one of the perks of having you around is that people don't think I'm crazy for talking to myself."

She put her hand firmly on Zola's back as she crossed the street, imagining a day in the future when she'd hold her hand to do the same thing. Or would she be pushing her in a child-sized wheelchair? "They said today they might want to put braces on your legs when you're bigger. Bet you're not going to like those very much," she added, thinking of the three times Zola had flung her socks off during her evaluations. "But if they'll help you, we'll make it work, won't we?"

Bailey had made sure to reassure her about that when they'd gotten coffee after the long morning. Meredith had Zola crooked in one arm to feed her, her own coffee growing cold in front of her. Even with Bailey sitting across the table, Zola's inquisitive eyes had captured her. She couldn't help but wonder if people would always see those eyes in days to come. Would they see whatever equipment came with them instead? She'd treated innumerable kids with spina bifida, and never focused on the accessories, but would everyone?

"Have faith," Bailey had said, reading her mind. "Whatever this girls legs can do, she's going to climb mountains."

Meredith hoped she got the chance. All the therapists' reports would go back to Janet for approval.

They arrived at the park and Meredith settled herself on a swing, with Zola still strapped into her carrier. "I loved these swings when I was a little girl," she admitted, letting the wind sway them. "I used to think if I could just swing over the bar, I'd be in a whole new world." A world where her mommy and daddy didn't fight. Hopefully Zola had found her new world early, and she'd never have to make wishes like that.

The thought made her remember the beginning of the conversation she'd had with the physical therapist. "You're a neurosurgeon?" the woman had said, in what could only be a sneer.

"I'm training to be one. My husband is."

"Hmm."

"Is that a problem?"

"Well…it's just, when we see kids whose parents are doctors there's usually a hidden agenda of _fixing _them. Neurosurgeons and spina bifida…well…it adds more complications to the mix now, doesn't it?"

"I don't want to fix her," Meredith had said then. "I want to give her the best life she can have. I'm not about to ruin it by subjecting her to a million medical tests she doesn't need."

She'd thought of the clinical trial, and by the look on her mentor's face she knew Bailey had, too. What was different about wanting to save people—and their family members—from going through the ordeal of Alzheimer's, but being willing to let Zola's body betray her in other ways?

Meredith had been considering it the whole afternoon, but it wasn't until she sat in the sunshine with Zola babbling happily at her that she came to a conclusion. Alzheimer's took a life. For Zola, they'd be making a life, and the best life possible didn't involve "fixing" her. It involved reminding her that she could be extraordinary all on her own.

While she swung them, she watched the other families on the playground. There were only a couple, and all of the children were older than Zola. A few of the moms sat on a bench talking, or reading, but one mom about her age sat on the edge of the sandbox, helping her son pile dirt into a pail. "We'll do that when you're bigger, Zo," she promised. "Get you really dirty so you can splash around in the tub as long as you want."

To Meredith's surprise, Zola had loved her bath the night before. Her delighted shrieks had drawn a grin out of Cristina, something Meredith hadn't been able to do all week, no matter how hard she tried.

While she watched the mom and boy dump the pail over to create a tower, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She twisted to pull it out, and Zola shrieked gleefully as the swing jerked.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me. How'd it go?" After she'd dressed Zola that morning in the purple dress Lexie had picked out, she'd sent a picture to Derek along with a brief explanation of where they were going.

"Really well, I think. Zola charmed everyone."

"Of course," he echoed, and she imagined the proud smile on his face. He didn't know how uncharming she'd been the day before. Today, having Meredith in her sight seemed to have been enough. Bailey had suspected the familiarity of the medical environment had something to do with it. "She'll fit right in with you two hospital-addicts," she'd said, but Meredith had gotten chills, thinking of her own childhood spent haunting hospital hallways for a glimpse of her mother. That wouldn't be Zola's life.

"They, um, said she's pretty young for them to make a prognosis, but they were surprised by some of her milestones. The rocking on her hands-and-knees thing she does? Plus, she's sitting almost completely unaided. With so much time spent in a busy orphanage that's pretty impressive. Still, they're worried about the muscle tone in her legs."

"Her medical records state that the lesion was pretty low."

"Yeah, but the effects will still vary. Derek, you know that."

"I know." He sighed. "But she was good?"

"She was perfect. She is perfect." Meredith smiled down at Zola, who was watching her lips intently. "She misses you."

"I miss her too. It's weird, I've only known her for a few weeks, but…"

"But it seems like forever? You're telling me. Heck, she's only been here three days and I can't believe there was a day she wasn't." _And I don't want to_. "How's your mom?"

"She's… all right. They pushed back the operation because the specialist I requested wasn't available yet."

"The specialist you requ—Derek, you didn't."

"It's my mom, Meredith. He's the best cardio-surgeon I know."

"What happened to not trusting him? After he lied?"

Already Meredith had begun the internal debate about telling Cristina. She hadn't realized Derek even knew where Burke _was_. Not that it mattered, but now that she knew the words would weigh on her tongue every time she spoke about Derek to her friend.

"His hand is fine. That's all I get to care about right now. People…people make mistakes."

Meredith wondered if an apology lay in there, but she wasn't going to accept it if there was. She hadn't made a mistake. "I get it. You want the best for your mom. You're flying specialists in from Peru, or whatever. I'm just surprised."

"I was too. I'd called him before I really realized what I was doing. Anyway, Mom's the least worried of all of us. She's bossing me and my sisters around constantly. If she tells me to go home to the baby one more time I might just do it."

_To the baby. But we can't just do this for the baby._

"It'd be nice if you were here. I was thinking… she really loves the water. I mean, in the bath last night, she loved it. I mentioned it to the PT and he said water's good for kids who have low muscle strength. It helps them learn control where it's easier to move. I thought maybe once you get back we could take her to the pool, or something." A hawk called overhead, and Meredith twisted and pointed to try to show it to Zola. "Bird, Zola. Bird."

"The pool… Mer, you're afraid of more than a tub full of water." It wasn't something they'd acknowledged, after she drowned. More that he never invited her to go fishing the way he had with Cristina, and she stood far back on the grass if she had to speak to him while he stood in their lake, fishing pole in hand.

"Zola shouldn't be deprived of something she loves just because I had a traumatic experience. I just don't want to take her on my own."

As soon as she said this, she regretted it. A good mother wouldn't admit this kind of weakness. Plus the implications of the statement were _in case I freeze, and something happens, and she drowns too. _All stupid thoughts when she'd be going to a community pool with a lifeguard on hand, but they were there nonetheless.

"Sometimes I forget."

"Forget what?" she said, standing up. Zola had made aface of _deep_ concentration, which implied that she'd need to be changed within the ten minutes it'd take Meredith to walk them home.

"How brave you are."

This stopped her in her tracks, even though Zola made a tiny grunting noise, signaling that she was further along in the proceedings than Meredith had expected.

"I mean, you have a choice. You could never go near the water again, but you're willing to for her. And other things. The bomb. And Burke reminded me over the phone of the time you stood up to him to get that baby in the NICU checked out. And… I still don't condone what you did. I can't agree that any of it was reprehensible, or even explicable, but standing up to Richard and to me was pretty brave."

"Or stupid," Meredith said, when her throat felt wet enough again to let her speak. "All of those things could be classified as stupid."

"Hey. Let me see my wife in the light I want to."

The word _wife_ made her smile stupidly, though she knew he might be speaking out of exhaustion, or desperation, and his anger would probably come charging back after he had time to process everything going on with his mom.

"And I would love to take our little princess swimming."

"We might have to do a few trial runs to make sure I don't have a panic attack, or something," Meredith said, unlocking the front door. "And now I have to go. The little princess has filled her treasure chest."

Derek laughed, and Meredith realized how much she'd missed this sound. "Okay. Give her a kiss from me."

"I will. Keep me posted. And Derek?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

And though she knew they still had a long road to travel down, for the moment this was enough

***

Lexie couldn't help scanning the cars in the driveway at home, and hated herself for the sigh of relief that crossed her lips whenever she noted that Jackson's wasn't one of them. Not that she didn't want him there, but they'd been on a case together all day. He'd been good, hadn't mentioned his plans, but the question marks in his eyes were impossible to miss.

She parked behind Cristina's motorcycle, and paused for a moment to glance in through the living room window. The tableaux made her smile. She could make out the hum of a base from behind the glass, and Meredith stood in the center of the floor dancing with Zola in her arms. Cristina stood to the side, watching skeptically, but by the time Lexie'd finished climbing the stairs she'd joined in.

"What are we dancing out?" Lexie hung her coat on a hook and came in with the paper bag she held clutched in the other hand.

Zola's voice reached her first, a joyous coo that escalated when Meredith spun with her. "We're indoctrinating her early," Meredith said, with a laugh. "And Owen tried to talk to Cristina today."

"All puppy-dog eyes and let's talk," Cristina agreed. In the past this would have been the moment when she took a deep swing from the ever-present bottle of alcohol, but now the only bottles scattered around the house were Zola's. As Lexie thought about this she realized how much they'd all grown up since the first days she'd danced with her sister—not the first 'dancing it out' Meredith remembered—and like it or not she'd have to join in with the "being an adult" even though she was six years younger than them.

"I brought something that might help."

"A shotgun?" Cristina deadpanned, and though the music still blasted from the speakers, she might as well have jammed her finger on a mute button. Meredith stopped, her hand cupping the back of Zola's head. Lexie clutched the bag to her chest, and Cristina's curls fell in front of her face as she hung her head. "I didn't mean that. I didn't think."

"No, you didn't." Meredith flipped off the stereo. Lexie saw the pain in her eyes for the second before she blinked it away. "What'd you bring, Lexie?"

With a half-hearted flourish, Lexie ripped the brown paper bag off of the carton of strawberry ice cream. Meredith grinned. "I know why I keep you around."

"Well since you married Derek, we didn't think it was to pay the rent," Cristina said. "Should I get the bowls since your hands are full of baby?"

"Unless you want to hear the not-so-dulcet tones of Zola-scorned," Lexie commented.

"Hey, she's getting better. She sat in her bouncy seat by herself for fifteen whole minutes while I talked on the phone today, didn't you Zo?"

"With you more than a centimeter away?"

"Hey, progress is progress."

Lexie was pretty sure Meredith didn't mind Zola's clinginess half as much as she claimed to, at least not judging by the smile she got when Zola grabbed for her spoon a few minutes later. "Want to try?" She brushed the ice cream against Zola's lips. The baby poked out her bright pink tongue, and made a face as she contemplated the new taste. Then she waved her arms excitedly and lunged for the spoon again.

"Looks like you don't have to disown her for bad taste, Mer," Cristina said.

"Don't listen to her, Zola. You could stay even if you didn't like strawberry ice cream. We'll talk when it comes to chocolate cake."

"Who were you on the phone with? Derek?" Lexie asked.

"Nope, I talked to him before that. Izzie, actually. I emailed her the other day about Zola. She wants me to drive up there sometime so she can meet her. I said once Derek is back in town maybe. I'll have plenty of time on my hands."

"She can't come down here?"

Meredith shrugged, letting Zola have another tiny lick off her spoon. "I guess it's hard for her. She says she hasn't been seeing anyone up there. She still loves Alex, I guess. Just can't be with him."

"I understand that," Lexie murmured, and Cristina nodded.

Meredith went silent for a moment. "Also, I called the contractor."

"I thought that was Shepherd's job," Cristina said.

"Is he here? I wanted to find out what it would take to make the house more accessible. In case… you know. I mean, it's two-story, no getting around that, but they can widen doorways, put in railings, that kind of thing."

"Did they suggest that this morning?" Lexie smiled at Zola, who'd appropriated Meredith's spoon and was attempting to feed herself ice cream.

"No. I just thought we should be prepared. We can't take it one step at a time anymore. We have to think about the future. Her future." Meredith took the spoon to help Zola guide it to her mouth. Her words echoed in Lexie's mind. _The future_. She'd have to decide her own future sooner than she thought, not just move with whatever happened.

"Anyway," Meredith continued. "We have some of my baby stuff in the attic. I thought about going to look at it after Zola's asleep. There's a really nice rocking horse some distant relative gave me one Christmas, but I think it might be too dusty and full of my old germs to be worth anything."

"Do I have to teach you about half-lives? Did the mommy-germs erase basic science from your brain?" Cristina raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not going to dignify that with an answer, except to remind you that one of us got accepted to Harvard Med and one of us got waitlisted."

"You got waitlisted at my school? You almost went there?" Lexie said, the words jammed together thanks to her inability to decide which question absolutely needed to take precedent at that moment. (Deciding things. Always her problem.) "But I thought you only applied to Dartmouth because everywhere else would require references from a professor whose son you slept with."

"Yeah, well… I actually would've gone there if Mom hadn't wanted to be away from everyone she knew once she got diagnosed. She moved to New York, so there was no point in me staying in Boston."

"It's weird. It's like we kept crossing paths or something." Lexie said this pointedly, hoping Meredith's memory might somehow be jogged. She'd been hoping it, in a way, for three years.

Meredith nodded pensively, but before she said anything that might make Lexie think they'd had a breakthrough, Zola opened her mouth to let out a huge yawn. "I better put her down," Meredith said. "She's had a busy, busy day. What do you think, Zola? Time to read a book and turn off the lights?" She stood up, and paused only long enough to place her bowl next to the sink before disappearing in the direction of the stairs. Lexie could hear her narrating the trip to Zola the whole way.

She took it upon herself to wash the dishes, while Cristina retreated upstairs, too. As she piled the bowls back into the cabinet, her phone chimed.

_Mark:_

_At least during the surgery I'll have the chance to beat my top score in Angry Birds_.

Lexie snickered, and headed toward her attic bedroom, trying to convince herself she wasn't a little pleased Jackson was on-call. While she pressed send, and paused in front of Meredith's room to listen to the phone ring in her ear, she heard Meredith's voice through the wood of the door.

"Good patting, Zo. Isn't the bunny soft?" The tone reminded Lexie of the way her own mother had spoken to her, once upon a time. She smiled at this, and not because of the gravelly voice saying "hello" in her ear. (He needed a friend. She could be that and choose Jackson. If she wanted to).


	8. Chapter Seven

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

_Nothing good can last_. This was what kept repeating itself in Meredith's brain while she dashed from the ER drop-off through the automatic doors and then bypassed the nurse's station. Zola's stuffed frog tapped her side with every step, since it hung limply from one of the baby's tiny hands. Zola had stopped crying, but her body shuddered against Meredith's chest every time she inhaled, and her cheeks were tear-stained.

The bustling ER usually seemed efficient to Meredith, a controlled level of chaos. Now she saw it how the patients must, as an overwhelming mess, where no one seemed to see the important things, like a woman and child standing in the middle of the floor, desperately searching for help.

"Mer?" She whirled around, and Zola grabbed her shirt tightly, her tiny fingernails clawing at the skin underneath the fabric. Lexie had approached them, her head tilted curiously, someone else's chart tucked under one arm. "Couldn't stay away? Hi Zola! Oh, what's wrong sweetie?" Zola had begun to whimper again. Lexie put a hand on her arm, and her eyes widened. "She's burning up."

"No sh—." Meredith bit her tongue, telling herself to breathe. How many times had she told parents that panicking wouldn't help their children at all? "I know. That's why we're here. Dr. Robbins is on her way down. I should have called an actual pediatrician, but we don't have one of those. We were so unprepared for this. She deserves so much better."

"Meredith!"

She raised her eyes, and shifted Zola so the baby could put her head on her shoulder. Lexie's tone was sharper than she'd ever heard it. "What?" She flicked her eyes to the other side of the ER, hoping to see Dr. Robbins skidding around the corner at any second.

"Don't you say that! If it weren't for you, Zola'd still be stuck in that hospital bed, or she'd be back at an orphanage without the kind of medical care she can get here. More than that, she wouldn't be as loved as she is now."

"Love isn't going to help break her fever."

"You'd be surprised." Meredith lunged toward the voice, holding Zola out, but then drew her back in once she saw who'd spoken.

"You. This is your fault. She should have been here, being monitored."

Alex rolled his eyes. "She's a kid. They get sick. Let me look at her."

She clutched Zola to her chest. "I paged Robbins."

"She's in surgery. You got me. Do you want me to go away?"

Meredith took a deep breath, which was incredibly difficult when each one of Zola's whimpers made her chest contract. "No," she said. "I didn't want you to go away."

Alex glanced at her sharply, catching the tense shift, but before he could say anything Zola began to cry again. Meredith held her out, biting her tongue to keep the words _fix her_ from coming out. _Not_, she thought _in the way the physical therapist meant._

"This way," Alex jerked his head toward a cubicle, and his coat swirled around him. God, he acted like some kind of cocky vigilante. With bitterness still swimming in her veins, she could see why people hated him, but if he made Zola better she promised she'd try to ignore that part in future.

"I'll start a chart," Lexie offered, but Meredith barely heard her. Instinctually, she slid onto the gurney herself to settle Zola in her lap. Alex shook his head, and Meredith reluctantly got down and put Zola down on the gurney. As she'd predicted would happen, Zola began to scream. Heads in the ER turned, and she knew people wondered what she'd done to this beautiful baby.

"What's she presenting with?"

"High fever, irritability. She's slept a lot today, too. I thought she was teething, but nothing helped, not the frozen teething rings or anything. She's doing it even when I hold her and—."

Alex held up a hand, and began to run his hands over Zola, under her bright pink t-shirt. Meredith hadn't seen him touch anyone this gently since Izzie. Zola wasn't soothed. She grabbed his thumbs, trying to push him away. "I want to get an IV started before we do anything. Mer, can you calm her down?"

The familiar way he said her name made Meredith's mind swirl. She wanted Robbins, who'd known how to soothe Zola when she didn't. And wasn't Alex, like, the hospital baby-magnet? But if Robbins were here, she'd have to do her job, like Alex did. Now Meredith's job was to be the mother, and this would be a test of that—one more challenging than even her intern exam. She leaned down to Zola.

"Hey Zo, I know this sucks. But Doctor Karev made you all better before this and he's going to do it again." She shot a look at Alex, hoping it said _don't make a liar out of me_. "I know it's pretty scary around here with all the bright lights, and all the people, and I know you don't feel good. One day you'll be able to tell us what hurts, but right now we need to figure it out for you. For us to do that you have to calm down." As if a six-month-old would know what she meant. She stroked Zola's hair lightly. Tears kept falling down the girl's face, but her eyes focused on Meredith, and her hitching sobs turned into whimpers.

"Hold her down, okay?" Alex said.

Meredith put both her hands on Zola's shoulders, feeling like the ultimate of all traitors, especially when Zola's face crumpled in shock at the additional pain of the needle going in. Once he had taped the IV down, Meredith let go. "See Zola? All done. It's all done." She made the sign for 'all done', hoping that any additional familiar gesture might help. Zola flailed, and one of her tiny feet hit Alex in the chin while he took off her diaper.

Secretly, Meredith was kind of proud of this, but she searched for some other way of keeping Zola's attention. The stuffed frog lay forgotten on the side of the bed. She picked it up and stared into the wide mouth of the toy. Zola's next pitiful wail set her into action.

"Zola, why are you crying?" she said, in a voice she hoped sounded vaguely like a frog's. Heat rose up the back of her neck. Sure, she'd taken an acting class or two in high school, mostly to piss her mom off, but that was different than doing…this in the middle of the ER. If Nurse Tyler saw he'd mock her for the rest of her life.

_This is Doctor Grey. You're in good hands; she does a fabulous frog impression._

But Zola stopped crying. Her eyes were fixated on the frog, with one tiny eyebrow lifted just a bit. She tilted her head, adjusting to this strange new world where frogs talked.

Unfortunately, within moments of her quieting down, Meredith was completely at a loss as to what the frog might say next. In desperation she thought of a mom she'd seen on the floor a few months before, playing with a toddler and a teddy bear. She pressed the frog to the side of Zola's face and made kissy sounds, alternating with pretending the frog was gobbling Zola up. Either the noises or the feel of the fuzzy frog made Zola burst into a grin that somehow made Meredith's fear recede into the background, like a rainbow overshadowing the few clouds left after afternoon rain.

She'd given Zola her third round of amphibian hugs when Alex tapped her on the shoulder. The baby took advantage of her distraction to yank the frog out of her hand and shake it, frowning inquisitively when it didn't scream in protest.

"Have you noticed an increase in her urine output?"

Meredith bit her lip. A good mother should've known the answer to this. "She just came home a few days ago. She wets a lot of diapers but… but I don't have anything to measure it against."

"Yeah, I figured. Okay, next step, I want to take her for an ultrasound."

The panic returned. "What do you think is wrong? Is it another hernia? Did they miss something last time?"

"I'm not sure yet. I have a theory, but it should've been in her file. However, her medical history being what it is, and where it's from, I'm not ruling anything out. We'll put something in the IV to sedate her, and take her up."

"I'm coming." Alex frowned, but Meredith wasn't about to take no for an answer. Not from him. "You owe me."

Alex scowled, not even arguing that sending Zola home had been payment enough. "How long are you going to pull that?"

Meredith crossed her arms. "Your bar tab at Joe's? It's going to have nothing on this."

Alex's face hardened for a second, but then he nodded. "Okay. I'll go put in the order for the Versed." Meredith turned back to Zola who had the frog's flipper in her mouth. Zola watched her movements, and cooed. Then she held one fist out. Meredith slipped her finger into it, and smiled. "You bear absolutely no resemblance to the little devil who's been screaming in my ear all day. If you're better behaved in the hospital, we'll have to bring you here more often. For social calls only, mind you."

She put her hand on Zola's chest. Her tiny heart beat steadily against her palm, and she felt sure she'd never tire of the sensation.

Someone touched her shoulder a second later, and she jumped.

"It's me," Lexie said. "Just me. How is she?"

"Perfect," Meredith said without thinking. "I mean. Better. She's calm. Alex wants an ultrasound."

"I know. I heard him give the order. How are you?"

Meredith shook her head. "I don't know if I can do this, Lex. I'm not sure when I was last so terrified—that's a lie. I am, and it involved Derek standing face-to-face with a gunman. Her whole life could be like this. I don't know if I'm strong enough."

"Oh, Meredith." Lexie's breath ticked the side of Meredith's face, as she surprised her by wrapping her arms around her. "You're strong enough. I've always known that."

There was the always again. Lexie kept saying it, and Meredith didn't get it, but before she could question a nurse came in a syringe, the contents of which she injected into Zola's IV. Soon the baby's eyelids flickered. "She always fights falling asleep," Meredith murmured as Zola's fingers slackened their grip on the frog. "She's afraid she'll miss something." As if illustrating this, Zola twitched awake one more time before sleeping.

They took her down for the ultrasound. Meredith sat on a chair next to the bed, one hand in Zola's, the other flipping her phone over and over in her hand, debating about calling Derek. He'd want to know where they were, but what could he do from there? She'd call him once she had a diagnosis.

She craned her head to see the ultrasound, but Alex must have warned the tech against her, because he kept the screen turned away from her. Back in the ER, Zola slept with one arm wrapped around the frog. Meredith sat in a chair next to the gurney, wincing with each time Zola whimpered in her sleep. She jumped up only when Robbins came wheelying around the corner. If Alex had paged a superior, it must be bad.

"What is it? What's wrong with her?" All kinds of possibilities flooded her mind, most of them involving dire prognoses.

"Relax. She's going to be okay. Karev's theory was right, but he wanted me to confirm."

Meredith shifted her eyes to Alex, who stood behind Robbins with his arms crossed. Had he thought she wouldn't believe him?

"Her kidneys are infected, because her bladder isn't emptying properly. It's pretty common with kids who have spina bifida. Sometimes they grow out of it, but if they don't it can be controlled by catheterizing her a few times a day. If she still needs to do so when she's older, she can do it herself. She'll still go in her diaper, so don't go selling your Pampers stash yet." Robbins smiled, but Meredith stood with her mouth agape, trying to process this.

"But…wouldn't it have been going on since birth? Shouldn't this have been something you people noticed when she was here for almost two months?" Lexie put a gentle hand on her wrist, but she shook it off.

Robbins didn't flinch. "Sometimes it comes and goes. They might have done it when she was born, and thought the muscles had strengthened enough to handle voiding on her own. Or she might have developed problems as she grew. There's no way of knowing. Is she still taking her antibiotics?"

"Of course!"

"Then she's simply developed an infection resistant to those. We'll give her new ones, take a culture and make sure you have supplies to cath her a few times a day. She'll be right as rain."

Zola's snuffing snores were the only sound for a minute, but then Meredith let out a shaky breath. "Okay. Will you show me what I need to do? I've done catheters before, but not…" _Not on my kid,_ she'd been about to say, words that shocked her into silence.

"Sure. We'll be right back." Robbins jerked her head at Alex, who followed her out. The privacy curtain fluttered shut behind Arizona, and Lexie came around to face Meredith, who sank back into the chair with her hands in her forehead. She knew she should have been overwhelmed by this diagnosis—another thing Zola would have to set her apart—but to Meredith it meant she had a way to take care of things. The antibiotics would do their job, she'd do hers, and Zola would get well. Having a concrete goal almost stopped her shaking. Almost.

"You roared."

She removed one hand from her face to stare at Lexie. "What?"

Lexie curled her hands into half-hearted claws in front of her. "Roar. Like a mother lion. My mom used to do it with doctors. And teachers. And ballet instructors."

Hearing herself compared to Susan, the fake-mommy who she often wished she could have known better, gave Meredith pause, but she'd barely considered it when her phone rang. _Derek Shepherd (Cell)_. She sat up and ran her hands through her tangled hair before pushing 'talk'.

"I want you here," Derek said, with hardly any preamble.

"What?"

"For Mom's surgery. I want you here." He drew in a shaky breath. "I can't be without you if something happens, and I want her to...if something happens…I want her to meet Zola."

For a split second, Meredith thought of Susan and how she would've liked her to see Zola too. Then reality bit her. "What about the shunt? You said the other day—."

"I know what I said, but she flew before we put in the shunt. You'll be with her the whole time."

She bit her tongue for a second to eat the bitter statements about trust. "Derek… It's two days from now."

"If you don't want to come, just say it."

"No! It's not that! I do want to come. I want to be there for you. _I'm your wife_, and I want to be there for you. It's just…a lot at once right now."

She meant everything, and from the way he said, "Yeah. Yeah it is," she knew he did too.

"All right. Let me just… let me take care of the logistics and I'll… I'll let you know when we can get there."

"Okay. And Meredith? Thank you."

She murmured in answer, barely able to push the red end button on the phone before she thrust her face into her hands to muffle a scream of frustration.

"Meredith? What is it?" Lexie's hands were back on her shoulders.

"He wants me there. Us. He wants us on a plane to New York. I can't handle her on a plane, Lexie. I can barely get her to stop crying long enough to drive to the grocery store. We don't even know if she'll be here overnight."

"She won't." Meredith raised her head. Alex was wheeling a tray into the room. "Once we get some antibiotics in through the IV drip she can go. I'm comfortable with that."

"Are you comfortable letting us take her across the country?" Lexie asked, which was how Meredith knew that A. her sister had balls, and B. she'd need to find a flight with three empty seats.

***

"Why in the name of God haven't you bought a stroller?" Lexie snapped, while she held a fussy Zola in one arm, and tried to balance her carry-on bag back atop the handle of her suitcase. Meredith scowled and opened her mouth to reply, but the airline employee at the check-in counter called to them, and Lexie shuffled forward to help her propel had the suitcase, diaper-bag, car-seat and her purse up to the guy, while keeping her hold on the baby. She silently repented every time she'd ever gotten impatient with families traveling during the years she'd spent flying between Seattle and Boston.

Meredith hefted her suitcase onto the scale and then took Zola from her once she'd gotten the boarding passes. The baby immediately calmed, and Lexie felt a tad betrayed. She'd spent enough time with Zola over the past few days, one would think she'd be accepted at least as a temporary holder.

"Why was Cristina so pissed at you?" Lexie asked, while they maneuvered through the busy airport lobby toward security.

Meredith shrugged, readjusting the strap of the diaper-bag on her shoulder. "A lot of reasons. Her appointment at the clinic is next week, and she doesn't know what to do if I'm not back in time."

"The clinic?" Lexie asked. Meredith raised her eyebrows, and glanced pointedly at Zola. "Oh. That clinic."

"Right. Plus, I think she thinks maybe she's supposed to always be my partner-in-crime so she should be in on this endeavor."

In spite of her effort not to, Lexie burst into laughter. "I'm sorry, I just don't see Cristina running around an airport with a baby."

"Not sure I saw me doing it before now, either."

At that moment, Zola let go of the stuffed frog she'd been gnawing on. Lexie caught it. "That's why you've got me."

She sort of thought maybe they could've used about four more people once they got to the security checkpoint. Zola started screaming as soon as Meredith took her hat off, and kicked her feet out of Lexie's hands every time she tried to take off the tiny pink Converse they'd bought thinking only about how adorable they were, not how annoying they'd be to slip on and off. Once Zola'd been practically stripped, they'd still had their own shoes and jackets to remove. By the time they got everything done, the diaper-bag had been through the x-ray machine for five minutes, and the TSA officers were yelling for the owner to claim it before it got confiscated.

"I'm not flying again until she can take off her shoes herself," Meredith swore, while she attempted to stuff Zola's curled foot back into the shoe. "Did you see the way people were looking at us? They probably think I stole a hapless baby."

"They probably sympathize with how hard it is to fly with a kid," Lexie argued, leading the way to the gate. Once they found it, Meredith dropped all the bags in a pile with a huff. "Call Derek and tell him we're on the way. I'll buy us coffee."

"Don't you want to call Mark?" Meredith asked, digging through her purse. She piled a packet of baby wipes, a board book and a pacifier onto the seat next to her before she emerged with her phone. Lexie rushed off before Meredith could get herself together and make her answer the question.

The truth was, Mark didn't know she was coming out. It wasn't that she'd decided not to tell him, exactly. More that she'd been busy, finishing out her shift, packing, helping Meredith stuff Zola's stuff in her suitcase, watching Zola sleep while Cristina and Meredith argued in the hall. All of it was very…busy-keeping. And, okay, sure there'd been a text from Mark about Meredith coming down and how he wished another Grey would be coming too, but in the taxi on the way to the airport her phone had been buried in her purse, so she couldn't have responded anyway. She considered all of this while she bought the coffee, and warily went back to the chairs where Meredith had spread all their stuff out. She held Zola up on her lap, so the baby stood on her knees, wobbling some, but smiling as she observed the busy airport.

"Lexie Grey, doctor, sister, cupholder," Lexie joked, settling down with both coffees so Mer could keep her grip on Zola.

"I don't want to strap her in yet. She'll be in there for a while once we get going."

"Think she'll scream?"

Meredith wrinkled her nose. "Not if that frog and I have anything to do with it."

"Words I _never_ thought would come out of your mouth."

"Me either." Meredith bounced Zola a little, and the baby stuck her tongue out in a raspberry. "Oh so charming. Let's hope Derek doesn't think I taught you that."

"He's not going to be able to say you're a bad mom now."

"Watch him. Once he gets an idea in his head…" She sighed, and shifted Zola so the baby sat in her lap, then she took her coffee from Lexie. "He doesn't change his mind easily, as proved by the trial thing. He knows I see things as complicated, knows my morals have never been black and white, but he reacts…like that."

"Did he do the same thing with Izzie and the LVAD?" Lexie'd heard all the details of that from George, and she couldn't imagine a time when even Cristina had claimed responsibility for something so against the rules to save a friend.

Meredith sipped the coffee thoughtfully, tilting her head. "You know, we never really talked about that. We had so many problems of our own at the time… I don't think he would have. Derek understands love. He understands grand gestures, and not wanting to live without someone. He doesn't understand the family ties that aren't… family ties. Like, he knows my mom and the Chief had a thing, but he doesn't see the place of Adele in all that, or understand why it makes me willing to keep secrets for Richard or… or be influenced by Richard," she added, the first time Lexie'd ever heard her admit that Richard had something directly to do with her choice to change the drug.

"Your mother's legacy was the guilt," Lexie said, right as their flight was called. Meredith shot her a _huh_? look, and sat Zola in her carrier. The baby immediately began to cry.

By the time they'd boarded, ahead of everyone else, and stowed everything that wouldn't be immediately necessary for Zola's well-being, Lexie had had the time to put her thoughts together. "Your mother," she said in response to Meredith's questioning gaze. "Derek thinks her legacy was the Alzheimer's. It's why he's so upset, because he wanted to give you a chance. You see the guilt she left behind. The way you had to care for her. You don't want anyone else to go through that, but more than that you want to right her wrongs."

"Maybe," Meredith said, slowly.

"You're all about sacrifice. Yourself for others, for your mom, for Adele, for anyone you think deserves it. It's why you'll be such a good mom for Zola. It was my first impression of you."

"First? The first time I met you, I totally bitched at you."

"No you didn't," Lexie said, as the plane engines kicked in and the noise level increased. "That wasn't the first time." Meredith's eyes grew as wide as the flat side of a stethoscope. The plane began taxiing, and Zola began to fuss. They both focused their attention on her, until they'd gotten up in the air. She never burst into her famous wails, and once the plane had finished climbing through the sky her eyelids flickered closed.

Meredith watched her sleep for a long few minutes, and then raised her eyes to Lexie. "You," she said, and Lexie's heart began pounding hard against her ribcage. "Have explaining to do."

Lexie had anticipated this. She'd seen the story coming out since the day Zola came home, though she wasn't sure why. However she'd known, she'd put the photograph in her purse. She drew it out now. "The first time I flew was on a band trip to play a competition in Amsterdam."

Meredith's jaw dropped as she studied the picture, one wavering finger touching her own face. "You were Red?"

Lexie laughed. "Yeah. God, I couldn't believe Sadie came up with that. I'd only had the red hair a week. I dyed it back pretty soon after."

"Sadie… did she recognize you while you were here?"

"Maybe. She never said anything. Except for this it was all dark rooms and dead-of-night."

"True," Meredith said, ruefully. "But this doesn't really explain any of it, except that apparently I saved my sister from getting run over by a tram, and I don't remember it."

"Um. The tram thing might have been the only time I saw you completely sober, A. Also, B., I was there for your massive fight with Sadie, which you seem to have blocked out." Meredith frowned, deeply, and Lexie saw in her eyes the memories of the shouting match in the lobby of the hostel, with every patron from the stoned frat boys to Lexie's classmates hanging onto every word the girls drunkenly screamed at each other.

"Do you remember what caused it?" Lexie said, gently, reaching over Zola to put her hand on her sister's arm.

"I'd…decided to go to med school. Sadie thought it'd be selling out, doing what our parents wanted us to do."

"And the reason you decided?"

Meredith squinted, like she might still be having trouble seeing. In a way she was, Lexie thought, but it was the past she had difficulty making out. "The little boy. The sick kid in the hostel. I haven't thought about him in so long. My staying with him is what you've been basing your trust on? Someone had to be there with him."

"From your perspective. Let me tell you what I remember, and you're not allowed to doubt it. Photographic memory, remember?" Lexie shifted to face her as best she could in the cramped seat. Meredith kept her gaze straight ahead, but for the occasional glance at Zola. "The night my sister saved me from being squashed by public transportation, she stumbles into the dorm with someone else draped all over her.

"I'm as sheltered as a girl from Seattle can be, and this is the kind of thing my mother has warned me against. So, I'm kind of disappointed in this person who called herself Death. I'm lying there kind of grossed out by what I think is about to happen when I have two realizations.

"The first is that the person making out with my sister is the blonde chick I saw earlier in the day. Die."

In her seat on the plane, Meredith turned bright red and began spinning her watch around, and around on her wrist.

"The second thing is that there's a kid in a bunk nearby and he starts screaming. His parents are nowhere to be found—partying judging by the clothes scattered around on the floor. I'm debating whether or not it's my business when this girl—my sister—shoves Die to the floor, and goes to him."

"He was burning up," Meredith murmured. "I'd never felt anyone so hot."

"You yelled for someone to go for help. I went to get the desk clerk. When he came back, Sadie was sulking, and you were sitting on the kid's bunk, basically doing an exam. 'I think it's appendicitis,' you said. 'His abdomen feels hard, and the pain is centered around the right lower section of his abdomen.' The receptionist had no idea what to do, then the kid started being sick all over the place. You barely blinked, just held his head over the floor and talked to him."

"Sadie didn't want me to go with him in the ambulance, but I couldn't just send him alone. He didn't let go of my hand the whole time we were in the ER. They tracked down his parents, called social services, and I got back to the hostel around dawn."

"I saw you. We were rehearsing outside, about to go to the convention center. You seemed so…world-weary. Sadie came out and asked you if you wanted to go grab a joint at a coffeeshop."

"I just wanted to sleep. She wasn't happy with that." Meredith's head shot up as she remembered, "Asked me if I'd adopted the kid, because I took in strays."

"You took in another stray that night," Lexie pointed out. "Did you ask me to dance with you to spite her?"

"Maybe. Who knows? I started drinking early those days. Maybe I liked you, or saw you in the shadows while those other bitches from your school danced. God, Lexie, I can't believe that was you. Why didn't you say something?"

"I…" Lexie chewed her lip. "I don't know. I wanted to get close to you. You scared me, a little. I mean, you've always scared me, but…well, I wasn't lying the time I said you've disappointed me. It's not true now, but then… You had that epic fight with Sadie that night, and I thought, good, she's put that girl in her place and she's going to go be a badass doctor, and one day I'll meet her because I'm going to be a badass doctor, too."

"It kind of worked out that way."

"In the end. But the next night, the night before we left, you two were on the dance floor again, like nothing had ever happened. I asked you about the kid, and you shrugged like you didn't care. So I didn't want to tell you then."

Meredith busied herself adjusting Zola's head, which had flopped to the side as she slept. "I didn't want to think about. Being in that ER with him made me want to be a doctor more than anything I'd ever experienced. I managed to repress it, until I got the call about Mom. Sadie didn't want me to leave, even then, but she tried to understand. Eventually, she decided to go to med school, too. Her dad got her in right before the cut-off." She shook her head. "Seriously, why haven't you ever told me this?"

Lexie shrugged. "I figured it'd come out, especially with Sadie around. Once she left and it never did…. I just decided to keep things the way they were. It doesn't change anything."

"Maybe not. Except it means you saw me at, probably, the lowest point of my life and you still have faith in me."

"I saw you at a turning point," Lexie argued. "And you're at another one."

Meredith met her eyes, and Lexie held her gaze. Even after three years—or seven, depending on how you counted—she couldn't read the convoluted thoughts in her sister's mind, but she didn't have to. Her job was to reinforce whatever positive thoughts were there to banish the bad ones other people implanted. Those people didn't understand Grey.


	9. Chapter Eight

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

They landed at JFK at nine pm, and though it was only six Seattle time, Meredith felt as though she could sleep for a week. Zola was wide-awake. She'd woken up an hour or two after take-off, and Meredith had walked her up and down the aisle of the plane to give her things to look at. She'd spent so long in one place in the orphanage, and again in the hospital, that Meredith thought stimulating her must be important. It was all guesswork, but the motion kept Zola from crying at least.

"Changing a diaper in an airplane bathroom should be a challenge on one of those stupid survival shows," she told Lexie while they stood in the cab line. Derek had offered to come meet them, but she'd told him it would be stupid to spend the money on both cab rides. Really, she wanted the additional thirty minutes to get herself together after the flight. How the half hour would do more than the week he'd been gone, she wasn't sure.

Eventually, of course, the cab pulled up in front of the Hilton near Manhattan General. The bellman pulled open the door with a, "Good evening, Miss." She deposited the strap of the diaper bag into his proffered hand, and slid out of the cab herself, lugging Zola's car seat. Lexie came around with their other carry-ons. "Do you want a cart?" the bellman asked, eyeing their stuff. Meredith flashed back to a time when she'd gallivanted around the world with only a backpack. Those were the days.

"No, we got it," she said, ignoring Lexie's expression of disbelief. She also ignored the stares of everyone involved when she set the car seat down on the ground and unstrapped Zola. She didn't want Derek's first image of them to be her swinging the baby in a car seat by her side. She couldn't have explained this feeling, but it was strong.

With the baby on one hip, two bags on the opposite shoulder, and one hand on the handle of her suitcase, she knew she didn't look together, but at least she had control of everything.

At least until she saw him.

Derek paced the lobby in front of the revolving door, one hand clutching his phone and the other running through his hair. While Meredith watched him, she thought how out-of-place he seemed in the elegant lobby, with its gold chandelier and red velvet walls. He needed to shave, though she always liked him scruffy, and his hair was standing on end. But her eyes focused on his fingers, wrapped around the phone.

Her heart leapt with the realization that it'd been a week since she'd felt those hands on her skin—the longest time they'd been apart since they'd gotten engaged, and yet she stood frozen on the giant welcome-mat, while the other hotel guests sauntered past.

If Zola's babbling hadn't caused Derek to turn his head just enough to spot them, she wasn't sure how long she'd have stayed there. He swallowed, visibly, and then smiled. It wasn't his confident I-am-man smile. It was tentative, like he no longer knew the steps to the dance they were doing, but he wouldn't give up yet.

"I'll go check into my room," Lexie murmured. Meredith nodded—at least she must have, because Lexie headed for the front desk.

Derek stood inches away from her, and yet a river still could have been separating them. He reached for Zola, but the baby nestled her face against Meredith's shoulder. A week ago, Zola would have lunged for Derek without question. She couldn't help the small spark of triumph in her heart. Meredith would have felt worse about this feeling if she hadn't known that soon enough Derek's charm would win her. He always did.

"Hi," he said, taking the car seat from her. A poor second-best.

"Hi," she echoed, meeting his eyes. The amount of pain and worry in them almost floored her, and she knew that whatever they had to resolve would have to wait. There were too many other things in the mix. As per usual, she couldn't find the words to tell him this.

All she could do was blurt, "She needs to be cathed," words that should have sounded wrong and technical in the warm light of the hotel lobby, but to her the medical terms were more reassuring than anything else she could have said. "And to have a bottle."

"Of course," Derek said. He put a hand on her back to lead her to the elevator, and her spine stiffened. He lowered his hand and there was a swish as it brushed the leg of his pants. "I...uh…got them to send up a port-a-crib."

"Oh. She hates those. She's been sleeping with me. It'll make the eventual crib transition hard, I guess, but we both sleep better."

Zola lifted her head when she heard the elevator bell, and then stared at the mirrored walls, her tiny mouth open in awe.

"Do you see yourself? Do you see Zola?" Meredith angled herself so Zola could reach out to touch the shiny glass. The baby's breath fogged the glass as she giggled at her reflection.

This kept Meredith from having to consider the symbolism of elevators.

"I should have done her cathing an hour ago," she said once they'd entered the hotel room. She dumped the diaper-bag onto the bed—a King, what would that mean for the night?—, and spread out the changing pad with one hand. "But airport bathrooms are so far from sterile; I didn't want her getting a secondary infection. They were yucky, yucky bathrooms, weren't they Zola?"

Zola cooed, the flipper of the stuffed frog in her mouth once more.

"I don't blame you," Derek said, and she let out a breath. "Do you need—Is there something I can do?"

"Um. This is a one-person job, but you can fix her a bottle. There's one in the pocket of the diaper bag that just needs hot water." Meredith sanitized her hands, slid on gloves and adeptly took care of the catheterizing, while she listened to Derek fiddle with the microwave on the other side of the room. Once she'd taped on a fresh diaper, she held Zola's legs in the air, moving them in a bicycling motion. "The PT suggested this," she said to Derek, who'd come back armed with the bottle. "It helps strengthen her legs. She likes it. Mostly. Not so much if she thinks there's something else going on in the world that she might be missing."

Zola's determination to see everything gave Meredith faith that she'd make her way in the world, no matter what it took, like Meredith had. After all, didn't people always comment on how much she saw? And she'd done okay, watching people, learning how to help them in spite of challenges. She could have shared this thought with Derek, but it felt too intimate given the level of tension in the room.

How had something become _too_ intimate for them?

She took Zola's hands to pull her into a sitting position. She bobbed there for a second, and Meredith kept her hand behind her back until she steadied. Derek held out the bottle, but she shook her head. "Antibiotics first. She hates the taste, so we use her bottles as a chaser." Without thinking, she shot Derek a teasing grin, and he laughed. "Open up, Zo," she said once she'd measured the pink liquid into the little syringe. Zola made a face, but let Meredith shoot the medicine into her mouth.

"Bottle," she said. Derek slapped it into her hand like a surgical nurse passing a scalpel, and Meredith scooped Zola up and plopped the bottle in. Then she swiped a burp cloth from the diaper bag, and sat down on the bed. Zola sucked greedily on the bottle.

"If you're not quick on the draw with that it can turn into a scream-fest," Meredith said. "But she's at least good about taking it in the first place."

Derek shook his head and sank into the chair near the foot of the bed. "I'm impressed."

"Because you didn't think I could do it?"

He sucked in a breath, long and ragged. "No. I didn't doubt you."

She choked on the bitter laugh she didn't want Zola to hear.

"I didn't…when I left…after I saw you with her…. I may never get over what you did, but for me to expand that into saying you would be a bad mother was…well, it was wrong. When I said I didn't know how to raise a child with someone who—."

"Stop," she interrupted. "I know what you said." The words were ingrained on deep into her mind, repeating themselves every time she did something for Zola and wondered _is this right_?

"I didn't think about the fact that you know _exactly_ what's right and wrong for a kid. My mom, she did what she could and we all turned out fine. Mostly. I can't say if what she did was the cause of it. But you turned out all right _in spite_ of Ellis Grey. It's so clear to you what she did wrong that you'll do whatever it takes not to make her mistakes, including trying to fix Richard and Adele. So, it doesn't matter to me that it was Adele in terms of the trial, but in terms of us? In terms of our life with Zola? It does."

They were, in so many ways, the words she'd wanted to hear since he stood in the locker room and spat accusations at her. A year or two ago, she might have accepted them and moved onto the next step, afraid of losing him if she rocked the boat further. Now with Zola as a heavy reminder in her arms, she couldn't let it lie to placate him. "Did you have a deep heart-to-heart with your mom that led to these revelations?"

He cocked his head, obviously not expecting her harsh tone. "No. We've talked, some, and I talked to Bailey, but…"

Bailey. She remembered the conversation they'd had on the way back to Meredith's house, when she'd asked Bailey what she thought.

_It's not how I raised you, Grey_ she'd said, staring straight ahead at the Seattle traffic. _But there comes a time when I've got to respect your choices on your own. Was it right? Was it wrong? It's not for me to say. All I know is that you gave someone a chance who might not have otherwise had one. I don't appreciate the way you did it, but I can't fault you for doing it._ Derek's words didn't exactly echo hers, but the point she had to make was still there.

"Is this how it's going to be?" She shifted Zola to her shoulder and patted the baby's back in rhythm with her words. "I make a choice you don't approve of, and you disappear until you've received wisdom from someone who gets me in ways that you can't seem to?" She thought of Lexie, the sister who'd believed in her long before anyone else. If she could believe after every time Meredith screwed up, why couldn't her husband?

"How is it any different to your going straight to Cristina?"

"Because I _don't_. I go to you. I've gone to you about everything, as soon as I knew." He opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. "Don't bring up the vision thing. I didn't want to admit that to myself, much less you. And after that, I realized how stupid I'd been not to tell you in the first place."

"You didn't tell me you switched the drugs."

"Because I wanted to protect the trial." She offered Zola the nipple of the bottle again. It took the baby a second to take it, her eyes flicking back and forth between Meredith and Derek, but then she began to suck. "I wanted to keep you blind, and help Adele. I wanted to have it all. I guess that was stupid." She swallowed around the lump in her throat, the one that had lain dormant for a week. "I guess I can't have everything." She stood abruptly. "She needs a bath."

Zola hadn't finished the bottle, but she headed to the bathroom anyway, intending to gather her thoughts and finish feeding her while the water ran. Derek, never able to sense when she wanted to be alone, followed. To drown out anything he might say, she turned the water on so it blasted into the bright white tub.

Zola grinned around the bottle in her mouth once she heard the sound, waving her arms happily. "It's your favorite time of day," Meredith said, kissing the baby's forehead. "Can you get her bath stuff?" she shot at Derek. "It's all in my suitcase."

He nodded and shuffled out with only one hangdog look her way. She shut the door behind him, inhaling the steam in the air in the hopes that it would relax the tight muscles in her chest. "You should know I'm going to fix this. I don't want you to have parents who fight all the time. I'd let it go, if I could. As soon as every word stops feeling like he's shoving a scalpel in my heart, maybe I'll be able to."

She stuck her free hand into the water, and felt a tinge of disappointment when it didn't scald her flesh.

***

Lexie paced her hotel room expectantly, one eye focused on the phone sitting on her dresser. She hoped for Meredith's name to pop up on the screen, based on lack-of-response to the text Lexie had sent over an hour ago asking _Do I have to kill him?_ She was so tuned-in to awaiting a sound from her phone, that she almost missed the sound of someone knocking on her door.

She slid back the deadbolt and opened it for her sister. In the split second before Meredith stepped inside, Lexie thought how weird it was to see her without Zola attached.

"You have one of our bags," Meredith said by way of greeting. Even though the backpack sat right next to the door, she sank onto the bed, letting herself fall backward with a soft thump.

Lexie lay down next to her. "You okay?"

Mer rolled over, tucking one hand under her cheek. "I guess. I just needed to breathe. Having him in there…it's suffocating. Partially because a stupid part of me missed him so much I just want to jump him." Lexie raised an eyebrow and Meredith giggled (a much lighter sound than Lexie had heard from her lately). "We've been having a lot of sex lately, okay? Luckily, Zola's there, so I can't give into that. And I wouldn't. I keep hearing those words in my head, over and over. He said he didn't know if he wanted to raise a child with me and for months that's been all I wanted."

"Do you still?"

Meredith blinked at her, her expression so blank that Lexie wondered if she'd spoken a foreign language. "Of course. Derek's it for me. He's the only one. The only one I've ever wanted kids with. For better or for worse. We both said it. This is just…worse."

Lexie put her hand over Meredith's, and if she felt surprised when Meredith linked their fingers, she attributed to the lingering part of her that was admiring an aloof older girl from the shadows. "Is it worse than everything else you've gone through?"

For a while the only sound came from the buzzing hotel air-conditioning. Then Meredith swallowed. "No," she said. "No, because there's Zola. I'm fighting for her as much as for myself. Someone has to fight for her."

"Oh, Meredith," Lexie breathed, squeezing her hand. "You are _such_ a good mom."

Meredith sat up, smiling tightly. "I'd better go, or he'll think I abandoned him. It's probably one of the warning signs he's looking for."

"Mer—."

"Don't. I heard you, Lexie. I heard you, and I'm even starting to believe you. But right now, I need to prove it. I'll see you later."

"I don't guess I could talk you into letting Shepherd bond with the kid and going to the bar with me, for old time's sake?"

Meredith laughed. "Not this time. Adult, remember? But you should go. You never know who you'll meet at those places."

_You mean a sexy neurosurgeon who'll put me through the ringer?_ Lexie watched Meredith walk down the hall to the elevator, and then retreated into the empty room, figuring she'd order room service or something.

Half an hour later, she found herself sitting on a barstool, tipping her head back to down a third shot of tequila. The only other patrons at the bar seemed to be from an LBGT convention, so no chance of meeting someone … although there was a woman on the other end of the bar who could have persuaded her to do a Callie when she was a few years younger, and a lot drunker. (Or maybe any time, if she were honest with herself).

She wasn't looking for Mark. She didn't _want_ the one who constantly put up roadblocks. She was done.

Except, from the moment he'd mentioned Mrs. Shepherd's surgery she'd been unable to bear the thought of him sitting in a hospital waiting room with only the Shepherd Sisters for comfort.

Her phone buzzed in the right side pocket of her jeans. She fumbled for it, her fingers impeded slightly by alcohol. The text hadn't come from Meredith as she'd expected. Instead, Jackson's name flashed on the screen. She winced.

_Cristina says you're in NYC. Were you planning on telling me?_

She sighed, and tapped her list of reasons into the phone.

_You were on-call all day. It was kind of unexpected. Meredith needed me_. 

They all seemed like flimsy excuses. No matter what this trip to New York was, or what it led to, she knew things would soon be over with Jackson. He should have been the person she wanted, but something in her couldn't be as passionate about him as she knew she should.

_He's your vet_.

"Excuse me?" The deep voice haunted her thoughts so much that she almost thought she'd managed to let fantasy blend into reality through tequila. "You look just like someone I know."

She turned on the bar stool, wobbling a little too much for it to be the intense movie-moment. In the moment Mark's eyes widened in surprise, (proving he honestly hadn't known it was her) she had the giddy thought that this time she was the girl in the bar, and he was the guy.

Hadn't she always dreamed she'd be exactly like her big sister?


	10. Chapter Nine

**A/N** This fanfiction was written for the ga_fanfic big bang on livejournal. To see associated art and fanmix, please visit my lj. Username chicleeblair

They slept on opposite sides of the big bed, with Zola in the middle. Although Meredith could tell by his uneven breaths that Derek lay awake at least as long as she did, she let the familiar noise of Zola's soft snores lull her to sleep. At four, she fixed Zola's bottle as quietly as possible, hoping Derek wouldn't make an attempt to start a conversation, but a little disappointed that he didn't.

She awoke in the morning to a text from Cristina. _Owen's taking me,_ it said simply. A reminder of all she had to deal with back home, but also a tiny ray of hope. Maybe things could be fixed.

Derek and Zola stayed asleep while she dressed, preparing herself to rally for his sake. Today couldn't be about their problems. Zola began to stir almost as soon as Meredith had slipped on her shoes. Meredith gently picked her up before she could cry. "Morning, Zo. Should we wake up your—Derek?"

Zola gurgled, and Meredith walked to the other side of the bed. She sat on the edge, and placed Zola on her stomach next to Derek. His eyes flickered open as Meredith squeezed her hand, and then opened wider when babbled at him. "I think that's Zola-speak for good morning," Meredith said.

Derek chuckled—a sound that seemed to catch in his throat, and she imagined he'd realized what day it was. "Good morning to you, Zola," he said, slipping one of his fingers into fist. "And you."

"I ordered room service," Meredith responded, tugging Zola's clothes out of the suitcase. "I mean, I put the thing on the door last night. It should be here in fifteen minutes, so you shower and I'll get her ready."

Derek sat up, pulling Zola onto his lap. "Are you sure? I can help with her if you need—"

"Derek." Meredith gestured emphatically, a pink onesie balled up in her hand. "When we get home, you can take care of her as many mornings as you want, but today you have nothing to do but take care of your mom, okay?"

He blanched. "Okay."

He held out Zola, and while they shifted the baby between them, there was a moment where their faces were inches apart. Her instinct told her to kiss him, and his eyes went murky, suggesting he had the same thought, but he let Zola settle in her arms and kept walking. A second later, water began pounding into the shower.

Meredith sighed, shifting Zola onto her hip. "What do you think, Zola? Frog shirt for luck?" Zola blew a raspberry, and Meredith laughed, wondering what she'd ever done before she had this kid to distract her.

_Wallowed in your misery._

"Shut up, mental Cristina," Meredith said, and turned back to the bed to wrestle Zola into her overalls before the room service came.

While feeding Zola a bottle, Meredith stood over Derek menacingly to make sure he ate at least three spoonfuls of the Muesli she'd requested. The words they weren't saying floated in the air like bothersome flies that never got close enough to be swatted. She forced herself to ignore them.

"Where is everyone meeting?" she demanded once they'd cleared up the plates. She shifted Zola again, glancing around for the Snuggie.

"The lobby. I'll take her." Derek held out his hands. They were shaking.

"Later. It's easier to put her in here," Meredith said. She slipped it on, and let Derek slide Zola in. "Ready?"

"No." He coughed, and she saw the emotion the sound hid swimming in his eyes: fear, sadness, uncertainty. She knew them all so well. Without a word, she took his hand and opened the door. He clung to her long after she'd led him onto the elevator.

The cluster of Shepherds was hard to miss, though what most drew Meredith's attention was her sister, standing slightly apart from the gaggle of women, her arm laced firmly though Mark's. There would be many things for Meredith to say about this. Later.

"Is this everyone?" she said instead, after she'd counted enough people to theoretically make up the adult portion of the Shepherd clan. One nod was all she needed to start the parade down the block to the main entrance of the hospital. It surprised her that her supposed sisters-in-law followed her willingly, but she imagined it had something to do with the fact that Derek stood beside her.

She navigated them to the surgical floor, but hung back with Zola once they'd reached the room. Derek stopped too, his fingers still gripping hers so tightly she thought she might lose circulation. "Zola," she said, in response to his questioning glance. "I don't think the hospital wants a baby in there any more than Richard would. We'll go stake out a place in the waiting room." She leaned up and kissed his cheek hoping it would transfer reassurance into him.

"It's going to be a long day," she said to Zola as she searched for the waiting room. The familiar lighting made it hard not to take the same turns she'd take at Seattle Grace, but to give way to the twists of a new labyrinth. "I'll try to make sure you don't get too bored. Also, you might get passed around a lot, so let's keep a handle on the screaming thing."

In the nearly empty waiting room, she spread a blanket out on the carpet and set Zola on it. She figured if they were going to be here all day, she'd let it be known now she wouldn't be the one trying to confine the baby to someone's lap or her car seat. She'd been confined enough in her short life.

"Let's build a tower," she said, stacking the brightly colored blocks she'd brought. Zola had mastered only the knocking-down part of tower construction, but Meredith had to admit she liked this part better too.

Nancy was the first of the Shepherds to meander into the waiting room. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she eyed Meredith and Zola angrily, as if she couldn't figure out why they were there. Meredith's heart sank, as she suddenly wondered whether Derek's sister might see Zola as the same sort of outsider they believed Meredith to be.

"How is she?" she ventured.

The older woman shrugged. "She won't say, but I'm sure she's scared. She must be."

"She wants to be strong for you. Moms are like that."

Nancy blew her nose, and made a scoffing sound into the crumpled Kleenex. "You don't have to pretend, Meredith. It's not like you can understand. Derek says you hated your mother."

_Don't take the bait, _Meredith thought, squeezing the leg of Zola's frog. To her surprise, she heard someone else saying the words that had begun to form in her head. "Meredith loved her mother, in spite of everything, and she didn't want her to die any more than we want Mom to. She understands, Nancy."

Nancy didn't reply, but the glower she shot at Derek was enough to say she'd heard. Meredith raised her eyes to Derek's in surprised thanks. He held a hand out to her. "Mom wants to see you."

"Oh. But—"

"I'll stay with Zola. We need bonding time." He crouched on the floor. "Hi, Zola. What are you playing?" Zola eyed him nervously, leaning forward with one arm on the blanket to support her sitting position. Meredith kept watch, wary for any chin trembling. "I see you've got blocks. Do you like them?"

Zola watched Derek's lips for a moment, and then reached one hand out for a bright green block. She licked it solemnly, and then held it out to him. When he took it, she grinned. Meredith's chest relaxed and she turned to make her way to her mother-in-law's hospital room.

She hesitated outside of Mrs. Shepherd's room, thinking—_morbid, Meredith, morbid_—of how Derek had been the only one in the room when her mother died. But Mrs. Shepherd turned her head at her and smiled. Her eyes were so vibrant that Meredith managed to convince herself there would not be a similar performance.

"I hear I have another granddaughter."

"We hope. There's still paperwork that has to go through, but…. we're hopeful. At least I am."

"You're worried my stubborn son isn't?"

"He as much as said so a week ago," Meredith admitted. "I guess he told you…everything."

"He did. I'm ashamed of him, honestly. We had a talk when I came to Seattle about his need to understand the way you see the world."

"Yeah. He mentioned that. I guess in practice it wasn't so easy. Or maybe he's right. Maybe I took it too far. I don't know anymore." _Why am I admitting all this?_ No one must have been able to keep a secret in the Shepherd household, with those knowing eyes on them all the time.

"I'm not going to pass judgment on you, Meredith. I don't fully understand the ramifications of what you did, and I'm not sure Derek does either. That's what scares him most, I think. The uncertainty of the whole trial bothered him enough, and this made it worse."

"It didn't have to. If they hadn't figured out who it was…" Meredith stopped, aware of the defensive note in her voice.

"If they hadn't discovered it was personal, you mean? It was personal for Derek to begin with, and for you. I imagine if the FDA had known the stake you both had in this, they'd have taken it from you far sooner."

Meredith shrugged, not wanting to think of Derek's words in the conference room. _This is your disease_. Like he'd already decided she had it. Like all the promises to remind her of who she was only stood if he'd done all he could to cure it, at whatever cost—and what did that mean for Zola?

"But what's done is done. We all make mistakes. Maybe you made one. Maybe he did. But the biggest mistake would be to lose each other over it, or worse to lose my granddaughter."

The thought of losing Zola made tears prickle up in Meredith's eyes. She had a sudden image of herself standing next to an empty crib, staring at a floppy frog with no owner, and a bunny that wouldn't be patted again. The nausea the image caused reminded her of the gut-wrenching fear that'd washed over her while Derek bled out on the catwalk.

"That's not going to happen. None of those things are going to happen," she said, the realization as strong as the decision to go to med school had been the day she'd rode in an ambulance with a little boy who didn't have anyone else to hold his hand.

"Good to know. I have faith in you, Meredith."

"Someone has to," Meredith said before she could stop herself. She felt her cheeks go hot, but before she could amend the statement someone coughed behind her. She spun to face Preston Burke.

"Meredith. Nice to see you again."

"Dr. Burke. It's… well…. Take care of my husband's mother, won't you?" If the word "husband" surprised him, he didn't let on.

"Will do. Ready, Mrs. Shepherd?"

"I'll go tell everyone she's going back," Meredith said. She'd almost made it out the door before he called her name.

"How is she?" he asked once she'd, reluctantly, turned.

Meredith thought of the expression of despair Cristina had worn for the past week and she fought to keep her voice from betraying any of this. "I'm not sure that's any of your business," she said, and headed back down the hall.

The Sisters Shepherd, plus Derek and Mark left to follow Mrs. Shepherd as far back as they could, leaving Meredith, Lexie and the husbands she'd never been properly introduced to. She sank down on Zola's blanket, with Lexie facing her.

The parade of Shepherds returned soon. Meredith's heart sped up when she saw Derek, his eyes watery and his hair standing on end. This time was _not_ the time for the words on the tip of her tongue, waiting to spill out, but she knew she wouldn't be able to swallow them. She'd done too much keeping silent this year.

"Watch Zola for a minute?" she said to Lexie, and there must have been desperation in her voice, because Lexie didn't make a crack about Zola's tears. She nodded, and Meredith stood. "Derek? I need to talk to you."

"Now is not the time," Nancy snapped.

"I don't think that's your business, Nancy," Mark piped up. "Grey knows what's going on here. If she has to talk to her husband, it's her prerogative."

Every pair of eyes turned to Mark. He shrugged. "I have a kid, it's softened me. Cheerio, Zola?" He popped a piece of dry cereal into Zola's mouth, and grinned at her.

"It's important," Meredith said to Derek. "I wouldn't ask if it weren't."

He nodded, and slipped his hand into hers. Her spine stiffened. Would she be rocking the boat too much, again?

They went out into the hall, and around a corner to be out of earshot of the waiting room. "What's going on?"

Meredith bit her lip. Now it seemed so stupid to have drawn him out here for this. They needed to have the conversation, but did it have to happen now, with his mom sick, and all the other problems they already had?

"Mer?"

"I don't… we can't…" Tears rose in her eyes, the ones she'd suppressed thinking about losing Zola. "We can't fix her."

Derek stepped back. "What?"

"Zola, we can't fix her." Derek furrowed his eyebrows, and she could read the assumptions he was making on his face so clearly that she put her finger on his lips to keep him from judging her aloud again. "I don't want to. What I'm saying is I don't want to always be trying to fix her. No clinical trials. No quest for a cure. No getting so wrapped up in the medical stuff we forget to live. That's what we've done all year, Derek. With you recovering from being shot, and the trial, and the trying for a baby. We haven't been living, haven't been seeing each other clearly. I think… I think that's part of why it all exploded in our faces.

"So I'm not saying we don't get her the therapy she needs or anything like that. But I'm saying we take her to the park. We let her get in the pool, if that's what she likes and we don't make it about muscle tone, or making up for other things.

"And, if one day someone _who isn't us_ finds something that will help her, definitely help her, then I'm all for it. But there will not be any kind of 'Zola's Treatment' being discovered while our kid thinks her parents believe she has something so wrong with her they have to devote all their energy to fixing it."

"Mer, where is this coming from? I don't want to fix her. I love her the way she is."

The tears started flowing down her cheeks. She pinched the bridge of her nose, hating the day she'd become so emotional. Were the damn fertility drugs still coursing through her system? "That's what you said about the Alzheimer's thing, and it sure as hell started to feel like you thought there was something wrong with me."

Derek grasped her wrists, forcing her to meet his eyes. "I didn't want to lose you."

"I know. I know that, and I don't want you to go through loving someone with Alzheimer's. But Derek…we can't live our lives trying to hold the shoe up before it drops. It's what we've been doing, whether we admit it or not. Both of us are too close to this thing to make it work.

"Fine, I messed it up by being too personal with Adele and Richard, but you've been too personal from the start."

"I haven't—," he started, but then paused. His grip on her wrists slackened, and without warning he turned, banging both fists onto the wall next to them. Meredith jumped. A passing nurse scrutinized them, but hurried on. "Fine. It was personal. But Mer… I don't… I want… I want to raise Zola with you. I want to watch her grow up with you by my side. I want to die in your arms when I'm a hundred and ten, and I _want you to be there._"

"I will be. No matter what, somehow, I will be. We don't even know if I have the gene."

"And if you do?"

"Then I do. And if we're lucky someone else will cure it, but Derek it can't be us. I can't live my life like that. It wouldn't be living."

He stayed turned away from her for a long time. Slowly, his arms fell back to his sides. She leaned back against the wall, pressing her hands against it to keep herself upright while she steadied her breathing.

"Okay," he said, his voice raspy but determined. "Okay. I'll call Richard, and my contact with the FDA. I don't know what they'll do with it but… I know some people who might be willing to take over."

She nodded. It felt like all the words she had had been squeezed out of her. She watched him walk away, pulling his phone from the pocket of his jeans, but she stayed there another few minutes before she trusted herself to go back into to the waiting room.

Lexie made space for her on the floor, and took one look at her face before plopping Zola into her lap. The silence of the Sisters Shepherd threatened to suffocate her as much as being in the hotel room alone with Derek the evening before had been.

"Hi Zola," she whispered, resting her chin on the top of the baby's head. Zola craned her neck backward, grinning at seeing Meredith's face upside down. She reached up one hand and touched it to Meredith's cheek, patting gently like she could feel the tear streaks there. Yet again, Meredith wondered what she'd ever done before Zola.

Her smile faltered when Derek came back, his boots seeming to echo on the waiting-room carpet. To her surprise, he sank down beside her. One arm snaked around her waist, and it didn't feel wrong. Amy slid down onto the floor next to him, then Kathleen, Elaine, and finally Nancy. Silence kept her reign for a few moments, until Amy said, "Lexie says you're teaching her to sign. How does that work?"

Meredith exhaled. For the first time, she'd found something she could talk about with Derek's sisters. While they discussed Zola, who beamed up at them like she knew she was the topic of conversation—the little charmer even let Nancy-the-undeserving hold her—Meredith felt Derek's eyes on her**. **She called him on it that afternoon, once the She-Shepherds had gone on a food run, and Lexie'd gone in search of hot water for Zola's bottle.

"I just… you know so much about her already."

She shrugged. "We're a team, Zola and I. We're learning together, but we're both fast learners."

He nodded, but his eyebrows drew together, broodingly.

"Derek? What is it?"

"It's stupid. I know I'm the idiot who didn't come home, then had to fly across the country, but… you dealt with it so well. It's like you don't need me."

She almost choked on her laughter. His complaint seemed so banal in comparison to everything else they'd been arguing about. "Seriously? Of course I need you. I've handled it because I have to, like I always do. I wasn't raised to ask for help, but that's one of the things I know was wrong, because having people makes things _so_ much better. I'd have been a wreck without other people this week."

She waited for the "_no shit"_ from Lexie before remembering her sister wasn't there.

Derek's eyes were on Zola. Meredith slipped her hand into his to draw his attention back. "Derek Shepherd, I hate how much I need you. I can't raise this kid on my own, if only because I don't want to deal with two years of dirty diapers alone."

He laughed, surprised, and she reveled in the sound.

"We have a lot to work on," he said.

"I know."

"It might take a while for me to be able to trust you implicitly."

_Stab_. "I'm still not going anywhere."

He nodded once. "Okay."

"Okay," she echoed. Then she caught her lips in his, parting them with her tongue. The inside of his mouth felt so familiar, so warm, so—Zola shrieked, and Meredith barely removed her tongue before Derek's teeth clamped down in shock.

"Zola," Lexie said, coming over with the bottle. "If you're going to object every time they kiss in front of you, you've got a long eighteen years ahead of you."

Eighteen years. What would their world look like then, Meredith wondered. Would Zola be going off to college? Would they still live in the house on the land Derek had bought with no plans in mind, reeling from his divorce?

Would she be lucid enough to know the answers?

She didn't know. All she could do at the moment was slide onto Derek's lap while she fed their baby, and hope one day she'd be saying the words, "I'd do it again," under much more positive circumstances.

***

Lexie sat on the waiting room floor with her head resting on Mark's knee. Meredith held Zola on her other side. The baby had fallen asleep not long before, and the snuffling noises were the only sound in the room until Mark swore under his breath. Lexie raised her eyes to his iPhone, which he'd started shaking. "Damn pigs."

"Angry Birds?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I had every shot right, except the last one, but the stupid game doesn't care about that. You have to execute every maneuver perfectly. No going back to fix your mistakes."

"Good thing life's not like that," Lexie murmured.

"Yeah," Mark agreed, letting his finger slide across the screen again. Lexie watched a bird flip into a pile of wood flying into the green blob that was supposed to be a pig. A chain reaction sent other green blobs smashing, and soon the whole screen had cleared. "But it is the same in some ways. Like you never know when you're going to win, so you just have to keep trying."

"Even when you start to look like an obsessed freak?" Amy asked from across the room.

Mark laughed. "Especially then."

Lexie smiled, thinking of how she'd balked against Mark's preoccupation with her. How had she been so certain moving on would be the right decision? With him so close, the days she'd believed she was over him seemed to belong to another life.

"Shepherds?"

Their whole cluster raised their heads to see Preston Burke standing in the doorway. Lexie reached up to take Mark's hand, and next to her she heard Meredith shifting nearer to Derek, but their support wouldn't be necessary. Burke was smiling. Six of the doctors in their group gathered around him asking questions, but Lexie stayed on the floor with Meredith.

"So," Meredith said, her face bright pink with relief. "Mark?"

"Mark," Lexie agreed.

"McSteamy is your McDreamy."

"Huh?"

"Long story. Have you spoken to Jackson? He should know."

Lexie winced thinking of the conversation she'd had the night before. He deserved better than the half-drunk admittance she'd given him, but Mark had been there, and she couldn't stop herself from—and Jackson had to know before that happened. "Yeah. I mean… it wasn't something I wanted to do over the phone but…"

Meredith smirked. "But you and Mark wanted to make up for lost time and you thought you had to break it off first?"

Lexie nodded, pressing her hand into her forehead.

"Well. You were right. Trust me. I've been there."

"One day I will manage to do something that doesn't mirror you in some way," Lexie murmured.

"Oh Lexie. I hope you never go through half the hell I've been through." Meredith put her hand on Lexie's shoulder. "But I'll admit there are some freakish coincidences."

She gestured at Mark and Derek who turned to them and said, "Ready?" at the exact same moment. The men laughed, but Lexie knew her face mirrored Meredith's expression of horror.

"You know what's weird?" Lexie said, while Mark helped her up.

"Huh?" Mer said, carefully putting Zola in Derek's arms so she could stand.

"From the start, I never doubted you were my sister. The day you saved me from the tram, I met your eyes and I just… knew. Maybe I saw myself somewhere, or something."

"Life's like that sometimes," Meredith said, looping the diaper bag over her shoulder. "Derek knew, with Zola, and I think I did too, once I stopped being afraid."

"I knew with you too," Shepherd said quietly. Lexie watched him run his thumb over the top of Meredith's palm. "The day at Joe's, I knew. You're the one who took convincing."

"I took you _divorcing your wife_," Meredith said. Lexie saw a spark of mirth in her eye that didn't mesh with what she said. This problem, which she knew from hospital gossip had _broken_ her sister had become banter. Somehow this told Lexie they'd all be okay. If Meredith could deal with the wife and the ring in the woods, she could learn to deal with Sofia. (After all, she had a feeling whenever the house got sold, she'd go through baby withdrawal).

While they walked down the hospital hallway, she heard a voice in her head, one belonging to Death.

_It's okay, _the voice said. _You're okay_.

And for the first time in a long time, Lexie truly believed it.

**A/N **Watch this space! The sequel to this piece will be posted before the premiere!


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